Peter Sagan fined after incident with Monaco police when breaking Covid-19 curfew
The Slovakian star's representative said that he feared he would be "forced to be vaccinated" against Covid
Peter Sagan has been fined over €5,000 after committing a series of offenses in April of this year, allegedly while drunk.
The Slovakian rider, who is about to join French UCI ProTeam Team TotalEnergies, had already started his racing season by this point and was soon setting off to ride the Giro d'Italia, where he won a stage and the points jersey.
Sagan and his brother were stopped by police at 12:30am on April 25. Sagan's representative in court said that when the police tried to get him out of the car he became agitated as he thought he would be "forced to be vaccinated" against Covid-19.
Sagan contracted Covid in February of 2021, which set back his form, forcing him to miss multiple cobbled Classics, riding the Volta a Catalunya instead after opening his season at Tirreno-Adriatico.
According to a report by Nice-Martin, Sagan injured the officers in a struggle as they tried to escort him to the Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco. At the time, the curfew was 10pm-6am.
Monaco was one of the hardest areas on the Mediterranean with over three and a half thousand cases recorded and 36 deaths in the principality that has a total population of 39,244.
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The incident saw Sagan fined €5,000 by a judge in Monaco's criminal court for resisting arrest and injuring a police officer. He was also handed an extra fine of €100 for breaking curfew. Along with this, Sagan will have to pay €1,500 in civil charges.
Sagan has since taken to Instagram to apologise for the incident though, claiming that he will "draw valuable lessons" after the "ugly experience."
According to reports, Sagan had no memory of the incident after several hours in police custody.
Sagan struggled for form in 2021 after having Covid and took just four wins on the road all season, also winning his native Tour of Slovakia overall. He abandoned the Tour de France after a crash on stage three with Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) led to an infection in his injured knee.
Sagan is expected to make his debut for his new team in 2022 at the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina and is currently in South America after attending the race's presentation of the route.
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
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