There are many ways of passing a compliment in the professional cycling, though some are more backhanded then others. When Matej Mohoric successfully defended his overall lead in Sittard on the penultimate day of the BinckBank Tour last August, there were dark mutterings from some of his Belgian colleagues about his supposed habit of taking undue risks in the peloton. One rider even suggested that there might be a loose coalition against the Slovenian on the race’s final stage.
It was hardly coincidental that the final leg was a cobbled stage over the Muur and Bosberg to Geraardsbergen. It may have been Mohoric’s first ever race on the pavé, but since seizing the overall lead in Antwerp, he had shown himself to be the strongest rider in the race. In its own inimitable way, the Flemish contingent was acknowledging Mohoric as a threat.
One was put in mind of Eric Vanderaerden’s emergence as a force in the 1980s when senior figures in the Belgian peloton – including honorary Flandrian Sean Kelly – made little secret of their attempts to bar or at least delay the youngster’s accession into the elite caste of Classics winners.
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Mohoric dealt confidently with the flurry of attacks on his jersey on the breathless finishing circuit in the Flemish Ardennes, successfully defending his overall lead to claim the biggest stage race victory of his career. In his press conference in Geraardsbergen’s town hall afterwards, meanwhile, he gently deflated the polemic over his riding style. Months on, the Bahrain-Merida rider is bemused by the brief furore.
“I think those were stories based more on fiction than fact, but maybe there were some guys who weren’t happy to see a rookie win,” Mohoric tells Cyclingnews. “I don’t feel I ride any more aggressively than any of the other guys in the bunch but I am very self-confident: I take my positon and I don’t give it up even though I’m new.
“I will continue to stand up for myself. In the past, the guys with more experience and results had more respect in the bunch, but now everybody’s on the same level, and nobody’s going to give you any space even if your name is Peter Sagan or Greg Van Avermaet. That’s just the way it is.”
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2019
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via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/seeing-cycling-through-different-eyes-mohoric-takes-aim-at-cobbled-classics
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