'It's a dream for every rider' – team masseur races World Championships in remarkable last-minute call-up

He was the most unlikely of names on the start list: a team masseur, without a single UCI point, who hadn’t raced a bike in nine years. But Slovakia’s Vladimír Kováčik ended up one of the heroes of this year’s UCI Road World Championships, after he was drafted in at the last minute to represent his country, and held pace with the peloton for over 100km.

The 28-year-old masseur started alone for Slovakia in Sunday’s elite men’s road race in Montreal, Canada. His country was allowed to field up to four riders; however, all the other hopefuls either dropped out due to injury or prior commitments to their trade teams.

Failing to field a rider could have had repercussions on the nation's qualification for the LA Olympics in 2028; the UCI might have downgraded the ranking of Slovakia’s national championships for next year, meaning their riders would earn half as many qualification points.

So, with the deadline already passed for registering new riders, the national team coach turned to an unlikely source: 28-year-old Kováčik, who still held a racing licence, and had travelled to Canada as a soigneur for the squad.

“I don’t have words for this one. It's a dream for every rider, and I’m a masseur, so it’s crazy,” Kováčik told Eurosport ahead of the race start.

“The information was that the last rider was really injured and he couldn’t come, so a few days ago, it was the last option.”

Prior to Sunday, Kováčik’s last race came at a Polish one-day event in 2017 that he did not finish, then aged 19.

He lasted just over 100km within the peloton on his Worlds debut, before he was dropped on the entrance to the finishing circuit in Montreal, with around 168km to go, and pulled out of the race.

Speaking beforehand, he said he had done “a little bit of training, but just only like an amateur”.

“It was a little difficult to put the numbers on, because it was nine years ago when I did it for the last time. And I shaved my legs. Yeah really, really difficult,” he laughed.

The world title was won in the end by the USA’s Brandon McNulty, who soloed from a front group with 33km to go.

Slovakia have won the event three times in the past, all courtesy of Peter Sagan, who went back-to-back-to-back between 2015 and 2017. The country won gold in the under-23 road race in Canada last week through Viktória Chladaňová.