Teams & Riders Peter Sagan discussion thread.

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Lequack

Lequack

Jul 10, 2014
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Crazy to think he is still only 33.

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jaylew

jaylew

Mar 19, 2009
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Sagan has never seemed to me like someone who truly loves road cycling and everything that goes along with it. He was just insanely talented and of course everyone loves winning. You could tell from his interviews even fairly early in his career that he wasn't going to be in it for the long haul. I think he'd have preferred to retire after the Bora years, honestly.
 
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DaLong

Aug 29, 2020
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Well, well, the eve of his last race. My original favorite rider (now onto MvdP)...I literally knew nothing about cycling and just picked the guy who won the first stage I ever watched. I was pretty depressed at that time in my life and rooting for Sagan and watching cycling really gave me a hobby in an otherwise alcohol filled void...Anyhow, hope someone else remembers this race. Anyone else feel free to share positive memories (as opposed to the people who didn't like him and have already voiced their opinions). I have probably rewatched the final attack with Dillier in the 2018 Paris-Roubaix another 20 times as well.


 
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tobydawq

tobydawq

Nov 16, 2013
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jaylew said:
Sagan has never seemed to me like someone who truly loves road cycling and everything that goes along with it. He was just insanely talented and of course everyone loves winning. You could tell from his interviews even fairly early in his career that he wasn't going to be in it for the long haul. I think he'd have preferred to retire after the Bora years, honestly.
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Well, he was in it fairly long. 14 years is a long career. But yeah, I also think he had way too mnay commercial commitments for it to be sufferable. Someone should have taught him to say no to things.
 
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tobydawq

tobydawq

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DaLong said:
Well, well, the eve of his last race. My original favorite rider (now onto MvdP)...I literally knew nothing about cycling and just picked the guy who won the first stage I ever watched. I was pretty depressed at that time in my life and rooting for Sagan and watching cycling really gave me a hobby in an otherwise alcohol filled void...Anyhow, hope someone else remembers this race. Anyone else feel free to share positive memories (as opposed to the people who didn't like him and have already voiced their opinions). I have probably rewatched the final attack with Dillier in the 2018 Paris-Roubaix another 20 times as well.


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As someone who has followed his career very closely, I think I will do a countdown with his biggest moments at some point. But it has to be a rainy day ;)
 
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Gigs_98

Gigs_98

Feb 18, 2015
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I really wonder how much of his decline was age and how much of it was a lack of motivation. I just can't believe someone would decline that sharply when he was still in his twenties. It's easy to forget just how great he was at his peak. He was younger when he won his 5th majore one day race than MvdP when he won his 5th last week. I simply would not have believed it if someone had told me then that basically that was it. A few more stage wins at GTs, but he would never come close to his true best again.

Oh well, he still had a great career, but I can't help but think he could have had an even greater one.
 
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gunara

gunara

Dec 6, 2012
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Gigs_98 said:
I really wonder how much of his decline was age and how much of it was a lack of motivation. I just can't believe someone would decline that sharply when he was still in his twenties. It's easy to forget just how great he was at his peak. He was younger when he won his 5th majore one day race than MvdP when he won his 5th last week. I simply would not have believed it if someone had told me then that basically that was it. A few more stage wins at GTs, but he would never come close to his true best again.

Oh well, he still had a great career, but I can't help but think he could have had an even greater one.
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and at the same time, even at his best years, somewhere along the way, somehow we always knew that he would never fulfil all the promises, his palmares would be filled by missed chances. Number of rainbows and green, though, are quite good returns if we think about it, maybe even too easy, when every monument was more often than not less than lucky affair for him.
 
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Salvarani

Oct 15, 2017
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Gigs_98 said:
I really wonder how much of his decline was age and how much of it was a lack of motivation. I just can't believe someone would decline that sharply when he was still in his twenties. It's easy to forget just how great he was at his peak. He was younger when he won his 5th majore one day race than MvdP when he won his 5th last week. I simply would not have believed it if someone had told me then that basically that was it. A few more stage wins at GTs, but he would never come close to his true best again.

Oh well, he still had a great career, but I can't help but think he could have had an even greater one.
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He had a bad crash in the Tour. I think it was in 2018.

Problem in his family or with his wife. I believe he is divorced, right? Anyone who has gone through something like that probably knows that aint easy. Especially with kids involved.

He was world champion for three years straight. Thats a lot of extra obligations. Just look at Ala now. Nowhere in the past couple of seasons.

Sagan was still quite good 2019 but a lot has happened since then. Other great riders have emerged and Sagan quite fast had to realize he was not the best anymore. Not the strongest. That probably does something mentally to you as well. It is a breaking point. Add to the stuff above and just simply getting older... it is not really surprising. He had a great and pretty long run. Few riders get that.

He has done mistakes recently in his personal life and there are probably a lot of reasons for that. I hope he seeks some help or has done it, so it doesnt get worse. That would be quite sad and unfortunately he wouldnt be the first famous athlete/famous person falling into that pit.
 
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Netserk

Netserk

Apr 30, 2011
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Gigs_98 said:
I really wonder how much of his decline was age and how much of it was a lack of motivation. I just can't believe someone would decline that sharply when he was still in his twenties. It's easy to forget just how great he was at his peak. He was younger when he won his 5th majore one day race than MvdP when he won his 5th last week. I simply would not have believed it if someone had told me then that basically that was it. A few more stage wins at GTs, but he would never come close to his true best again.

Oh well, he still had a great career, but I can't help but think he could have had an even greater one.
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While he was affected heavily by his Tour crash in 2018, he was still solid in the Tour the following year and was strong in Yorkshire. So his sharp decline was after the lockdowns, when he was 30.
 
Red Rick

Red Rick

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Netserk said:
While he was affected heavily by his Tour crash in 2018, he was still solid in the Tour the following year and was strong in Yorkshire. So his sharp decline was after the lockdowns, when he was 30.
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In 2020 he still did something. It's not like he completely fell into the Grand Canyon form wise straight after the lockdowns. He was still good in 2020, but didn't have that extra gear that Van Aert suddenly had, and he wasn't winning bunch sprints anymore. Still made a battle out of the green jersey, and that stage win in the Giro in 2020 was pretty epic.

In 2021 he was still competitive in reduced sprints, did get the 4th in Sanremo, but was no longer competitive in hard races.

In 2022 he got like 1 stage in Switserland and his one 'good' one day race result by conventional standards was 7th at the WCRR, but in 2022 that is just an indictment of how shite that race was.

People like to point at one single cause too much. Generally there's multiple, but if I have to point out the strongest I cannot see how you can argue for anything other than a loss of motivation being the #1 reason he declined, as we've heard numerous stories about his drinking issues. Age IMO is the weakest argument, and I'd guess that could only explain like losing the uphill/reduced sprints more often to a guy like Matthews or something. But Sagan just really lost the plot completely.
 
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rallybanana

Apr 27, 2022
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I wonder if Juraj's retirement at the end of 2022 was one of the reasons for Peter's loss of motivation? They were in the same pro team for 13 years. Once Juraj retired, Peter had no more obligation to help his brother's career and maybe lost interest.
 
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Gigs_98

Gigs_98

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Netserk said:
While he was affected heavily by his Tour crash in 2018, he was still solid in the Tour the following year and was strong in Yorkshire. So his sharp decline was after the lockdowns, when he was 30.
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I guess it depends on what is meant by sharp. As @Red Rick mentioned, it's not like his shape ever hit a cliff. His decline was steady, it's just that it was way faster than typical. And while he still had some amazing performances in 2019 I think it's hard to argue that process hadn't started already. (I think you can argue it started even earlier but whatever)

I also want to mention his Yorkshire 2019 performance though. It's easily forgotten that in a slightly more conventional race he very well could have won his fourth WC title there.
 
Netserk

Netserk

Apr 30, 2011
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Gigs_98 said:
I guess it depends on what is meant by sharp. As @Red Rick mentioned, it's not like his shape ever hit a cliff. His decline was steady, it's just that it was way faster than typical. And while he still had some amazing performances in 2019 I think it's hard to argue that process hadn't started already. (I think you can argue it started even earlier but whatever)

I also want to mention his Yorkshire 2019 performance though. It's easily forgotten that in a slightly more conventional race he very well could have won his fourth WC title there.
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Sure, but while I think he was more impressive in 2017 than in 2018, I think the difference is quite small. So I think nearly the entirety of his decline before the lockdowns is down to his Tour crash. And he seemed to have mostly recovered from that come the Tour in 2019.
 
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Red Rick

Red Rick

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Netserk said:
Sure, but while I think he was more impressive in 2017 than in 2018, I think the difference is quite small. So I think nearly the entirety of his decline before the lockdowns is down to his Tour crash. And he seemed to have mostly recovered from that come the Tour in 2019.
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How much do we want to blame a TdF crash when he fininished that TdF and proceeded to race the Vuelta afterwards as well?
 
Netserk

Netserk

Apr 30, 2011
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I think how he finished that Tour tells. If he had ended his season then, maybe he could have recovered fully in time for a solid winter, but I think that as it was it affected his winter and thus his spring the following year.
 
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Aimar16

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1) Sagan was crazy good from a younger age and was at a high level for many years, maybe more than anyone else in peloton.
2) Sagan and MvdP are completely different riders. You have never seen Sagan race like MvdP at the Tirreno-Adriatico/TdF. When Sagan took part in a stage race or GT he was constantly competing for stage wins. He was super-consistent. He raced a lot and had crazy stats like being in the top 3 in over 43% of his racedays in one year, or over top 10 in 60% racedays..
3)This kind of racing throughout the year is not only physically demanding, but also mentally. And he did it for a decade. The fact that at 33 he is already burnt out and has little motivation is not surprising.
 
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