Peter Sagan on Pogacar and walking away: ‘Better him than me’

Reaching him is not as straightforward as it used to be. His days are filled with travel, sponsor work and personal commitments. “Yeah, I’m sorry,” he says in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. “I’ve been traveling a lot the last few months… Not easy.”

The difference with his racing years is clear. Back then, everything was planned. Training sessions, recovery, race calendars. Now he decides for himself what comes next. “I have to organize everything myself,” he says. “But I don’t complain. There is less stress than before.”

He still rides, but without targets or pressure. Asked how long he could keep up with his younger self, Sagan laughs. “Maybe the first thirty kilometers.”

When he talks about his Tour of Flanders win of 2016, he does not start with the move on the Paterberg. He remembers something else. “What I liked most? Who finished second. Fabian Cancellara. I had been second or third behind him so many times. Finally I could beat that old guy.”

Racing itself has changed. Or at least the way it is done. “Now Pogačar goes from 120 kilometers out,” Sagan says. “I know. Times have changed. I was much smarter. I liked winning, but I didn’t like suffering. If I could wait, I waited. That was easier. Less pain.”

Away from the bike, the shift came slowly. Years of travel, little time at home. “I was always away. I spent more time with other people than with my son,” he says.

The pandemic years exposed the cracks. Illness disrupted his condition, results slipped, and the constant travel began to weigh heavier. The doubts that had been easy to ignore became harder to silence. “The last three years were a nightmare… More and more often I asked myself: ‘What am I doing here? I should be at home with my son.’”

That question ultimately defined his exit.

From a distance, he watches a sport that has changed quickly. Riders are younger, more explosive and supported by detailed data and larger performance teams. Tadej Pogačar stands out, even for someone who has seen generations come and go.

“For the sport, Pogačar is amazing. They should let him race in a separate category,” Sagan says. It is admiration with a hint of criticism. Dominance, he suggests, risks flattening the unpredictability that once made races compelling.

As Sagan puts it himself: “They say cycling is not PlayStation. For him, it is. Even easier than PlayStation.”

They live in the same place, but barely cross paths. “Very rarely. I just wave from a distance,” he says. “Only on his rest days I can still follow him.”

He knows what Pogačar's life looks like. He lived it. “The life he has now, I had ten years ago. And honestly, better him than me.”