He may have been one of the most marked men in the Unbound 200 peloton, but it wasn't Matej Mohorič's day today.
The Team Bahrain Victorious rider was a last-minute addition to the already star-studded peloton, joining Olympic and Roubaix champion Greg van Avermaet in making their Unbound debut.
Mohorič is currently in his 10th year of being a professional road racer, and his accolades include stage victories in all three Grand Tours, the win at the 2022 Milan-San Remo, and a GC win at the 2023 Tour of Poland.
Mohorič made the trek to middle-of-nowhere America together with his WorldTour teammates, Matevž Govekar and Łukasz Wiśniowski. The trio got out on course for a recon the day before the race, and got their first taste of Unbound mud.
"It was not quite what we expected," Mohorič said on instagram. "We ordered bigger tires already."
The trio was seen scraping the mud off their tires, laughing and perhaps a tad dazed by what was to come in the 200-mile infamous gravel race.
Things didn't get much better for Mohorič once racing started. While he had a good start and stuck with the main group of contenders for the first part of the race, things quickly went downhill from there. The Slovenian flatted twice and cracked his rim, ultimately calling it quits, but he did so with a smile on his face.
"We're going to stick to road racing guys," he announced. "It's a beautiful day for cycling, beautiful weather, not so beautiful surface; it could be more smooth, it's pretty rocky. My sidewall does not like it but hopefully my second tube of the day will hold now."
Mohorič and his teammates rode the final miles to the second checkpoint together where they hoped to grab a ride back to their lodgings for 'a shower and something nice to eat.'
However, all three Bahrain riders were in good spirits, laughing and promising to return—Govekar and Wiśniowski, anyway.
While Mohorič and his teammates enjoyed an early shower, racing continued. In the end, Australian Lachlan Morton (EF Education-EasyPost) entered the final stretch with just Chad Haga (PAS Racing) and a two-up sprint ensued, won by Morton.
