Image and video hosting by TinyPic Image and video hosting by TinyPic Image and video hosting by TinyPic Bilder hochladen
21
April
2018

Sagan sinks into the couch

Sagan sinks into the couch
I was thoroughly fucked but I tried to enjoy it afterwards,” Peter Sagan says with a grin as he explains how he felt after winning the Paris-Roubaix classic this month. “When I was younger, it was always my dream to win Paris-Roubaix. I didn’t think about the world championships and [the Tour of] Flanders.”

Sagan is the most popular rider in cycling today and, with the murky uncertainty surrounding Chris Froome and Team Sky, his victory felt like a shaft of light which revealed panache and grit. They call Paris-Roubaix the ‘Hell of the North’, because its 29 cobbled sections have a bone-juddering impact on even the toughest and most brilliant riders. It is also the glittering peak among the five monuments which are cycling’s oldest and most prestigious one-day races.
This year the severity of the challenge was underlined by the death of the young Belgian cyclist Michael Goolaerts, who suffered a cardiac arrest. For just under six hours Sagan was in a battle and his feat was accentuated by the fact he broke for glory a startling 53km from the finish. The Swiss cyclist Silvan Dillier clung to a narrow lead as they entered the velodrome, but Sagan was Cordrea Tankersley Authentic Jersey imperious in the final 100m.
“Twice I didn’t finish Roubaix,” Sagan says, “and in those races I Omri Casspi Youth jersey did finish I was in much worse condition than this year. If you’re fighting for first position your emotions are very different. I was not thinking: ‘This is the http://www.officialkingsteamstore.com/Jeff_Carter_Jersey hell of the north.’ But you realise one, two, three days later how tired you are. Especially the first morning, I was so tired when I woke up from shaking on the cobblestones.”
Sagan sinks into the couch in a Maastricht hotel. We’re a week past Paris-Roubaix and it’s the day before he finishes fourth in the Amstel Gold Race – a 261km ride featuring 35 serious climbs – and the toll is obvious. Yet he is much more involved than he had been in a stilted press conference preceding our interview. As the routine questions from the Dutch press corps arrived slowly, Sagan quipped: “Is this a funeral?”
Here, in a more relaxed setting, it seems appropriate to consider Sagan’s remarkable rise from obscurity in Slovakia to becoming the world’s premier sprint cyclist and star of the peloton. The 28-year-old, who rides for the German team Bora-Hansgrohe, became the first reigning world champion to win Paris-Roubaix since Bernard Hinault in 1981. This second classic, after Sagan won Flanders in 2016, sits alongside other milestones. Last year only a controversial disqualification, after Mark Cavendish fell heavily in a bunch sprint, ended Sagan’s run of five successive Tour de France points victories in the green jersey. He then won a third consecutive world championship in Norway.
After that victory Bradley Wiggins tweeted, of Sagan: “Cycling’s saviour! This man is currently bigger than the sport, look after him. Congrats Peter, a true legend and one of the all-time greats!” This gushing reaction mirrors the online response whenever Sagan pulls a giddy stunt – as in 2015 when he was John Travolta to his wife Katarina’s Olivia Newton-John and they acted out the fairground scene from http://www.officialducksshoponline.com/authentic-17-ryan-kesler-jersey.html Grease. cheap nfl jerseys cheap jerseys cheap nfl jerseys cheap jerseys



« yet speaking out veryoff their seats every time they play »


Weitere Artikel der Kategorie Allgemein
Weitere Informationen zu "Sagan sinks into the couch"
Immer auf dem Laufenden bleiben!
Neueste Artikel der Kategorie Allgemein

Melden Sie sich an, um die Kommentarfunktion zu nutzen


Kommentar zu "Sagan sinks into the couch" verfassen

Kostenloser Counter
Besucher
0 Mitglieder und 26 Gäste sind Online

Forum Statistiken
Das Forum hat 1944 Themen und 7092 Beiträge.