My World, by Peter Sagan

Title: My World
Author: Peter Sagan (with John Deering)
Publisher: Yellow Jersey Press (UK) | VeloPress (US)
Year: 2018
Pages: 308
Order: Penguin (UK) | VeloPress (US)
What it is: A chamoir, from Peter Sagan
Strengths: It’s a chamoir from Peter Sagan
Weaknesses: If your tolerance for bantz and bullshit is low, this is not for you

Yellow Jersey Press

If you put a hundred monkeys in a hundred rooms with a hundred typewriters, you’d get a hundred cycling books. All remarkable, none special. My book – this book – is unique. It’s my story. Everyone has a story. You have a story but only I have my story. My story is always changing. It changed over the three years I wore the rainbow jersey of World Champion. It’s changing now I don’t even have a national jersey to my name. Tomorrow, it’ll change again, who knows, I might become a dolphin, or a unicorn! Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Because my story is always changing, just like yours is always changing but in a different way because you’re not me and I really don’t want to have to listen to you chuntering on about your story, I can’t really tell you my story. Which came as a bit of a surprise to Tim Broughton at Yellow Jersey Press after he bought the rights to my autobiography! In the end we agreed I would tell you about wearing the World Champion’s rainbow jersey for three years in a row. That’s a story no one else can tell you because no one else has been World Champion for three years in a row! Apart from Jeannie Longo. And I don’t know how many others in track or BMX or mountain biking or whatever – have you ever looked at the number of rainbow jerseys the UCI gives out every year? Hundreds! But my rainbow jerseys are special, they’re mine, not Jeannie Longo’s or any of the others. I’m the only one who can tell you about wearing my World Champion’s rainbow jerseys for three years in a row! Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Bryn Lennon / Getty

My first World Champion jersey was won in Richmond. Richmond is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England and the administrative centre of the district of Richmondshire. Oh, hang on a minute, I cut-and-pasted that from the wrong Wiki article! This is the right one, I think! Richmond is a suburban town in south-west London, 8.2 miles (13.2 km) west-southwest of Charing Cross. It is on a meander of the River Thames, with a large number of parks and open spaces, including Richmond Park, and many protected conservation areas, which include much of Richmond Hill. What, that’s not the right one either? Well if you’re so smart, go to the right Wiki article yourself, I’ll just get on with my story! Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Before that though, let me give shout-outs to all the people on Team Peter. This may take a while and will be very boring unless you’re part of Team Peter, so you might want to skip on a paragraph here! Juraj Sagan, take a bow! No, not my bow and arrow stupid, a bow bow! Sylwester Szmyd, who has the coolest nickname in cycling! Gabriele Uboldi, owner of more dogs that I have underpants! Giovani Lombardi, the greatest agent in cycling! Let me tell you about Lomba! One time Lomba riled Stefano Feltrin so much Lomba made Feltrin turn puce! (Puce? Do I know even what puce is? You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got less of a ghost writing this book for me and more a case of demonic possession! Call me an exorcist! “Peter, you’re an exorcist!” Shut up Jens! Why so serious?) Feltrin, he was so angry, as well as puce whatever that is, that he told Lomba he was going to fuck him in the ass and it would be the worst ass-fucking Lomba’s ever had and Lomba’s had a lot of ass-fucking. What bantz! Eventually they kissed and made up! But not with tongues, there’s no gaytitude on Team Peter! We’re one hundred per cent testosterone fuelled heterodudes! We just have a thing with asses.

Have I told you about Katarína? I think now would be a good time to tell you about Katarína! She came with a house I had built in dear little Slovakia, a country that’s not even as old as me. It was born after the Velvet Divorce that broke up Czechoslovakia, a reference to the bloodless Velvet Revolution of 1989 that led to the end of the rule of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the restoration of a capitalist state in the country [citation needed]. Katarína was the sister of the man who built my house, we don’t give out wives with new houses in Slovakia, not yet anyway! Katarína was well travelled having worked for DHL. All DHL employees get sent around the world twice a year in cardboard boxes, to test their delivery service, so she’s seen the world, but only from inside a cardboard box! Still, at least it wasn’t a Jiffy bag! There’s no Jiffy bags on Team Peter! When Katarína and me got married we had a very expensive wedding, with fancy dress and carpentry. It was worth every penny, you only get married once, this was a one-off, never to be repeated ever ever ever again event in each of our lives! Religion and the whole way of life within the Catholic church is a rock to most of us Slovakians! Have I told you I met the Pope? I met the Pope! He was really happy! I hope I haven’t upset him by mentioning the Velvet Divorce, us Roman Catholics, we don’t do the D-word.

Richmond! I won my first rainbow jersey there! Did I tell you about that yet? No? Well look, why don’t you go watch it on YouTube and I’ll move on, it feels like we’ve been talking about Richmond forever now and I think it’s giving me attention deficit disorder! Let me tell you about how I love fire extinguishers and setting fire extinguishers off! I love fire extinguishers and setting fire extinguishers off! Shut up Jens! Why so serious!

What’s next, ghost writer? Doha? Do I have to do the Wiki thing again or do you think they’ve got the cobbled together point yet? No? Really? Okay, you’re the one doing the typing! Doha is the capital and most populous city of the State of Qatar. Doha has a population of 1,850,000 in the city proper with the population close to 2.4 million. The city is located on the coast of the Persian Gulf in the east of the country. I won the World Championships there in 2016! Great result, shame about the race! Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

The Olympics are brilliant, aren’t they? The Olympic road race, it’s odd though. It’s unique in that it’s a team sport that produces an individual winner. You don’t get that in any other sport, not even Formula One! But in the Olympics, you’re not racing for your trade team, you’re racing for the national team. Doesn’t happen anywhere else, that. Anywhere. Nowhere. So I didn’t want to do the road race at the Olympics in Rio and I rode the mountain bike one instead! That didn’t go well! But Team Peter – Gabi and Lomba and me – didn’t mind because we had an apartment on the beach well away from the prying eyes and distractions of the Olympic village and every night I kicked Gabi’s ass at FIFA on the PS4! Isn’t FIFA on the PS4 brilliant? Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Oleg Tinkov? He’s brilliant! He left cycling because he said he felt like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I don’t think I’ve come across Don Quixote in the peloton yet but I’m keeping an eye out for him! With a crazy name like that, I’ll bet he likes setting off fire extinguishers too! Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Getty

Before Rio, I went to France for the Tour de France. Funny that, the name of the race is the Tour de France and it takes place in France. I wonder why that is? Anyway, at the Tour I won the second stage and got presented with two new jerseys to add to my collection of jerseys. I like jerseys. Jerseys are brilliant, aren’t they? At the Tour, the jerseys I got were green and yellow. Yellow! I won the yellow jersey! The golden fleece! The most storied jersey in sport! Insert your own yellow jersey clichés here, I’m busy kicking Gabi’s ass at FIFA on the PS4! Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Bobby Julich? He’s a ****!

After Oleg Tinkov left I moved to BORA – hansgrohe. The team was originally founded in 2010 as Team NetApp, a UCI Continental Team with 14 riders. It was promoted to ProContinental Team status after the first season. For the 2013 season, Team NetApp and British based Endura Racing merged to form NetApp-Endura. On the first rest day of the 2014 Tour de France, 15 July 2014, the team announced they had secured sponsorship with BORA. BORA is German company that manufactures and sells sophisticated kitchen extractor systems. I’d ask Katarína what sophisticated kitchen extractor systems are but, well, yeah, you know how that worked out! In late June 2016, days before the 2016 Tour de France, the team announced that from 2017 the team name would change from Bora-Argon 18 to Bora–Hansgrohe. Hansgrohe is a bathroom products company. I know more about bathroom products than I do about kitchen extractor systems, I spend a lot of time in front of the bathroom mirror every day! Funny how things work out! Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Aren’t tattoos brilliant? I have several tattoos. Maybe one day I’ll get a tattoo of my face on my face. Wouldn’t that be brilliant?

Bryn Lennon / Getty

The Tour of Flanders is Christmas Day in Belgium, says Fabian Cancellara, and that just shows you how useless the Swiss are with diaries! They make great clocks, but don’t ever buy a diary in Switzerland! The Tour of Flanders is also known as De Ronde van Vlaanderen. I won De Ronde in 2016. I pulled a one-handed wheelie at the finish! I like wheelies! I didn’t like the Ronde the next year, when I was defending champion. One moment I was in the gutter mashing a big gear, the next I’m looking at the pale Flemish sky like an April fool! Greg Van Avermaet rode into me, Oliver Naesen rode into Greg Van Avermaet, and Niki Terpstra rode over my 100% sunglasses. God I loved those sunglasses. Shut up Jens! Why so serious?

Did I tell you about winning the rainbow jersey in Bergen? Look, why don’t you just watch it on YouTube, I’d much rather be kicking Gabi’s ass at FIFA on the PS4.

TLDR: ADD-addled story of Peter Sagan’s three years in the rainbow jersey.