Nationality: Slovakian
Date of birth: January 26, 1990
Height: 183cm
Weight: 74kg
Team: Bora-Hansgrohe
Twitter: @petosagan

Peter Sagan is one of the world’s most powerful and versatile bike riders. Sprinter, puncheur, Classics rider; Sagan has the ability to do it all, which means it’s no surprise that the he has such an impressive palmares.

After the disbanding of the Tinkoff team at the end of the 2016 season, Sagan joined German squad Bora-Hansgrohe in 2017.

Peter Sagan: career so far

Sagan has competed in the Tour de France on five occasions – up to 2016 – and won the green points jersey every time, as well as recording seven stage wins at the world’s biggest bike race. He’s also recorded some impressive results at the Classics, including wins in the Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders and Ghent-Wevelgem.

But with that versatile bike riding talent, which began in mountain biking as junior in his native Slovakia, Sagan has become somewhat of a marked man in the peloton, meaning race wins and stage wins are becoming harder and harder to come by as other riders refuse to help him to the finish.

In fact, Sagan has now become as well known for finishing second as he has for his accomplishments at the Tour and took to jumping in breakaways in the 2015 edition as he hunted for that elusive win, all the while hoovering up the intermediate sprint points for the green jersey.

His early pro career saw him compete as part of the Liquigas/Cannondale team from 2010-2014, before joining Russian super-squad Tinkoff, where the pressure was significantly higher on him to achieve bigger results in one-day races and the Grand Tours.

Peter Sagan escapes to win the 2016 Tour of Flanders. Photo: Graham Watson

After a difficult 2015 spring classics season, Sagan took his second overall career victory at the Tour of California in May, then took a fourth green jersey at the Tour. In September, he won the men’s road race at the World Championships.

Wearing the rainbow jersey, Sagan won the 2016 editions of Ghent-Wevelgem and the Tour of Flanders, before enjoying his most successful Tour de France to date, with three stage wins and a fifth points classification victory.

After an unsuccessful appearance in the cross-country mountain bike discipline in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Sagan bounced back to take a second consecutive victory in the World Championships road race. To top it all off, he ended the season at the head of the UCI’s WorldTour ranking.

A third consecutive road race world title in 2017 came on the back of another highly successful season during which he won Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, and numerous victories within stage races, including a stage of the Tour de France.

However, a sixth points classification win at the Tour was ruled out after he was controversially disqualified by the race jury after a crash involving Mark Cavendish on stage four of the race.

Sagan took arguably the biggest win of his career in the 2018 edition of Paris-Roubaix, attacking his rivals with 54km to go to bridge to the escape group. He then rode into the Roubaix velodrome with fellow escapee Silvan Dillier, beating him in the sprint to claim his second Monument.

Also well known for his jovial attitude on and off the bike, you’re quite likely to catch Sagan pulling a few wheelies or photo-bombing some of his fellow riders.

Major wins: 8 x stage wins Tour de France | 5 x points competition Tour de France| 2015 Tour of California | 2015 road race world champion | 2016 road race world champion | 2016 Tour of Flanders | 2017 road race world champion | 2018 Paris-Roubaix