Peter Sagan UCI World Champion

Peter Sagan, UCI World Champion

Peter Sagan,
courtesy of Alan Levine
After what was looking like a disappointing season of multiple second and third place stage finishes throughout the 2015 road cycling season, Sagan won the UCI Elite Men’s Road Race in Richmond and will ride in the inaugural Abu Dhabi Tour in the Rainbow Jersey. Tinkoff-Saxo cycling team owner Oleg Tinkov criticized Sagan for not winning in the Spring classics, just prior to the Amgen Tour of California in May. Up to that point in the season Sagan had finished fourth in Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders and 23rd in Paris-Roubaix just one month before in April. Sagan went on to win the Amgen Tour, and he won the Green jersey in the Tour de France in July for the fourth consecutive year.

Oleg Tinkov switched from complaining about Sagan not winning enough to justify his salary estimated to be around 4 million Euro ($4.5 million) to “Peter is the beast! Cycling without him would be different!” after Sagan won the Road Race. Sagan attended a Giro d’Italia presentation before flying off to the Abu Dhabi Tour. With his Rainbow Jersey, Tinkoff-Saxo may put Sagan in both the Giro and the Tour in 2016 along with other top-level races.

This begs the question, just where does Sagan fit within the Pro Tour, he is a good sprinter, but can he win a sprint starting shoulder to shoulder with Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) and Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep). As a sprinter, Sagan reminds me of Robbie McEwen (formerly Orica-GreenEDGE), an opportunist who doesn’t use the classic lead out train. Can Sagan be a General Classification contender? He finished 46th in the Tour. While he does well in short climbs, he does poorly in longer climbs. It looks like Sagan could be the next great one-day spring classical champion like Tom Boonen (Etixx-QuickStep) and Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing). Hopefully, Sagan can get through his upcoming season of inflated expectations.

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