UCI Cycling World Championships 2023: Three-time world champion Peter Sagan says goodbye to road cycling - his incredible career in numbers

“I’m so glad this is the last one,” cycling superstar Peter Sagan told Eurosport after finishing the 2023 Tour de France.

The seven-time green jersey winner at the Tour announced his retirement from road cycling in January after a career that saw him winning classics like Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders, 12 Tour de France stages, and three consecutive World Championships road races.

Having three rainbow jerseys is also what Sagan highlights looking back at almost 14 years as a professional cyclist.

“Definitely as victories, the three World Championships. You have to take those three special victories as one,” the 33-year-old Slovak said according to Cyclingnews.

Recently the TotalEnergies rider finished what he called the hardest Tour de France of his life with an eighth place on stage 11 as his best stage result.

Sagan emphasised at the Grand Tour that he is happy with what he has achieved on the road.

“The glory I think will stay; I’ve got nothing to prove any more. What I did is done and that’s good. It’s also a very nice period of my life – all the things I did in road cycling. But everyone has to finish at some point,” he told Cycling Weekly.

“I’ve done my job. Now I want to concentrate on myself and my family, and also to have some fun in mountain biking. Where I started, I would like to finish.”

And it is exactly on the mountain bike where he has set himself a new goal - to go to Paris 2024.

“I hope to be there (in Paris) with the MTB. The medal is possible, but the important thing is to arrive well. I’m very excited to achieve a great result,” Sagan explained to Marca.

“I have one more year of mountain biking, and I if I do well, maybe I can continue mountain biking. If not, I’ll stop after one year. There’s a lot of question marks.”

Peter Sagan: The legacy of a rock star on and off the bike

Sagan did not just leave a mark on modern day cycling with his results. He changed the approach to racing and inspired a new generation of riders, if you ask leading figures within the sport.

“The Van Aerts and Pidcocks of today are the Peter of yesterday – he opened that style of racing. He was the first to race aggressively, not just thinking about the regular way of doing things. He opened that philosophy of winning on different terrain and in different ways,” Movistar Team’s head of performance and a former coach of Sagan, Patxi Vila, told Velo.

“So many of the guys at the Tour do what Peter did. Since the start, he was the first to come with something different. He showed one rider can win mountains, sprints and can enjoy different races in the season,” said Sagan’s former sports director Ján Valach of Bora-Hansgrohe.

Sagan was also an entertainer. He celebrated Tour de France stage wins by doing a “Forrest Gump” and “the Hulk”, and he pulled a wheelie crossing the finish line in Gent-Wevelgem – just to mention a few of his memorable celebrations.

The three-time world champion also showed up to races with unshaved legs, dyed his beard green and started going to the podium wearing ski goggles. Things that were never seen before in the very traditional sport that road cycling is.

“Peter made a step forward. With him, contemporary cycling started. He got so many results, but also made new steps with other aspects. Sponsors, social media, and the image of a cyclist – he changed it all,” said Sagan’s longtime teammate Daniel Oss.

“In 2012, 2013, whatever, he was also the first rider in many years that was funny, that had something more than just the sport. He made everything around cycling more enjoyable for the people. He changed cycling to be more fun,” Valach added.

Tour de France stage winner and Olympic mountain bike champion Tom Pidcock is one of the riders from the new generation of riders who has expressed his admiration of the Slovak.

“Peter Sagan is sort of an idol of mine. I’m still a fan of his. Not just because he’s a three-time world champion, but because he’s Peter Sagan,” the Brit said three years ago.

Peter Sagan’s major results and achievements

Besides the incredible achievement of becoming the first rider ever to win the men’s road race three times in a row at the World Championships, Peter Sagan has a remarkable list of career wins.

On the road, the “Tourminator” has won incredible 121 races, and before that he was showing himself as a promising talent on the mountain bike scene.

Here are some of the biggest results of Peter Sagan’s career:

• 2008: Junior mountain bike cross-country world champion.
• 2011: Overall winner of World Tour race Tour de Pologne. Wins first Grand Tour stage at the Vuelta a España.
• 2012: Wins his first Tour de France stage and first green jersey.
• 2013: Claims the Flanders Classics Brabantse Pijl and Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal.
• 2014: Victorious at E3 Harelbeke.
• 2015: Becomes road race world champion for the first time in Richmond, USA, and overall winner of the stage race Tour of California. Wins his fourth and last stage win at Vuelta a España.
• 2016: Becomes road race world champion for the second time in Doha, Qatar, and European champion in Plumelec, France. He is awarded the Vélo d'Or for being the best-performing rider of the year and wins the prestigious monument Tour of Flanders.
• 2017: Becomes road race world champion for the third time in Bergen, Norway, becoming the first rider to do so three consecutive times. He also wins Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne at the Belgian opening weekend and GP de Québec.
• 2018: Clinches his second monument at Paris-Roubaix and takes his third Gent-Wevelgem victory.
• 2019: Claims his 12th and last Tour de France stage and his seventh green jersey, breaking the record previously held by Eric Zabel, who won the points classification six times.
• 2021: Secures his second stage win at the Giro d’Italia a year after his first and takes home the Maglia ciclamino as the winner of the points classification.
• 2022: Becomes national road race champion for the eighth time in Slovakia and takes his 18th stage win of the Tour de Suisse.