Peter Sagan at the Vuelta a San Juan, 2023 (Image credit: Maximiliano Blanco / Getty Images)
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 he has such an impressive palmares.
He is contracted to his TotalEnergies team until the end of 2024, but recently announced that he would be retiring from road racing and would focus next year on the mountain bike race at the Paris Olympic Games.
After the disbanding of the Tinkoff team at the end of the 2016 season, Sagan joined German squad Bora-Hansgrohe in 2017, where he found great success. He signed for French ProTeam TotalEnergies for 2022, and is contracted there until the end of 2024.
Sagan is a prolific Tour de France stage winner, with 12 wins to his name, from the years 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. He's finished the race in Paris wearing the green jersey seven times, a classification with which he has become synonymous. In total he holds 17 Grand Tour stage wins.
Sagan has also recorded some impressive results at the Classics and Monuments, including wins in Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Ghent-Wevelgem and E3 Harelbeke.
The Slovak can also climb. He has recorded GC wins in the Amgen Tour of California, the Tour de Pologne and a second in Tirreno-Adriatico, albeit with the main mountain stage cancelled.
He made his Giro d'Italia debut in 2020 after a disappointing Tour de France where he was beaten to green by Sam Bennett (Deceuninck - Quick-Step).
Sagan wore the mountain jersey for one day at the start of the Giro before turning his focus to stage wins.
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.
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.
He is also known for his graceful riding style and excellent bike handling skills. This has often seen him cross the line doing one handed wheelies.
Despite his ability, it hasn't all been plain sailing for the Slovak, who became known as something of a bad boy over the years. This was in part due to pinching a podium girl's bottom at the Tour of Flanders in 2013. And then there was his disqualification from the Tour de France in 2017 after he took out Mark Cavendish in the sprint finish at Vittel on stage four, ending the Manxman's race.
Sagan is no longer quite the force he was – it would be a surprise to see him winning a major Classic like Paris-Roubaix this year, for example, and a win on stage three of the Tour de Suisse was one of only two victories last year (the other being his national road race). However, his past few season have been far from barren, with several wins in 2021 including a stage and the points jersey at the Giro d'Italia.
