Peter Sagan is sticking to his Giro plans, will miss Flanders and Roubaix
Bora-Hansgrohe has confirmed that Peter Sagan’s 2020 plans include the Giro d’Italia—meaning that he will miss both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
The three-time world road champ, and former winner of both Flanders and Roubaix, had made his intentions of making his Giro debut this season known months before the year started. Although the calendar has changed dramatically since then, Sagan remains committed to that plan, even though it will now mean missing the two cobbled Monuments, which overlap with the Italian Grand Tour in the reshuffled calendar.
“I gave my word to the Giro that Peter will participate there and Peter did this as well,” said Bora-Hansgrohe team manager Ralph Denk in a press conference on Tuesday.
“It’s part of our style, how we work. It was a handshake agreement but for us that very important and we’ll stay to this agreement. That’s why Peter will fulfill this agreement and get full support from the team.”
Sagan has not missed Paris-Roubaix since 2013, and he has not missed the Tour of Flanders since all the way back in 2011. After more than a decade in the pro peloton, however, the 30-year-old Slovakian still has yet to race the Giro, and he decided to remedy that this season.
Bora sports director Enrico Poitschke outlined Sagan’s full program for the season, noting that he plans to start racing at Strade Bianche on August 1, before taking on Milano-Torino and then Milan-San Remo. Then he will race the Critérium du Dauphiné in preparation for his ninth straight start at the Tour de France, where he will be seeking his eighth points classification jersey.
Bora will also look to Emanuel Buchmann as a featured rider at the Tour—the German rode to fourth overall in 2019.
After the Tour, Sagan would like to race the World Championships (the road race is set to start on September 27), but with so little time before the start of the Giro (planned for October 3), he expects to miss Worlds if it remains in Switzerland as scheduled.
As Sagan pointed out to virtually gathered media, “You cannot have everything in this world, sometimes you have to make hard decisions.”
At his debut Giro, Sagan will hunt for stages and also the ciclamino points jersey.
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