Peter Sagan, who for almost a decade was resplendent in green every July, has said that his record of winning seven Tour de France points jerseys will be broken at some point.
In 2019, Slovakian Sagan beat Erik Zabel’s total of six green jerseys, a figure that many thought was unlikely to ever be bettered. Staying at the top for so many years, and avoiding illnesses, crashes and other episodes of misfortune, is no mean feat.
Since Sagan claimed his seventh and final points jersey, six other riders have won the points classification. Other than Sagan and Zabel, no one has defended the jersey since Uzbek Djamolidine Abdoujaparov in 1995. That’s proof that winning more than one green jersey is a difficult task.
But speaking to Cycling Weekly and The Athletic just before the current Tour de France, Sagan, 36, said he was sure that one day a rider would come along and win eight points jerseys.
“I had my records: seven green jerseys and three World Championships in a row, but I won’t have them forever,” he said. “Even Mark Cavendish won’t [have his record].
“He was fighting a lot to win 35 stages of the Tour de France and he beat Eddy Merckx’s record [in 2024], but in the future somebody is going to beat it. That’s life.” Tadej Pogačar, counting 22 Tour stage wins, is certainly a contender to better Cavendish’s record.
Sagan was racing in the era of Cavendish, Marcel Kittel André Greipel, yet every year he went to the Tour and denied the fast men the jersey that is nominally awarded to the best sprinter.
He made it look so routine – but it wasn’t always a walk in the park. “Every green jersey was different,” Sagan said. “Some of them I won very easily because the stages were good for me and I took a lot of points with second and third places, as well as in the intermediate sprints.
“But some years I went for the green jersey and didn’t win a stage. I was second, third, fifth a lot.”
Sagan was known as the peloton’s rockstar during his career
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Was that frustrating? “No, because I was focusing on the green jersey. I said it was OK because I had a good advantage. I wasn’t a pure sprinter but I held my own on the climbs and breakaways.
“In my first Tour I won three stages and the green jersey and I expected that from myself every year afterwards, but it was hard to win because every Tour was difficult.
“Sometimes I won stages but crashed and it was hard to finish the race and to take the green jersey. Other times I won one stage but it was also hard because there were three different riders in the battle for green so it was hard to control the breakaway to ensure that nobody was in there for the intermediate sprints.
“It was after I won my fourth green jersey that I said I wanted to go for the record. But it was never easy.
“If somebody asks me now who will win the Tour de France this year, I say Pogačar, but who knows how the first 10 days will go. Who knows if he’ll have bad luck or get sick. Three weeks is a long time and every Tour is different.”
Where green will land in Paris at the end of this July is a matter of debate. Mads Pedersen, winner of stage four, is the current occupant.
In an attempt to reduce the prospect of Pogačar winning the points classification – he was second last year – ASO, the Tour organisers, have upped the number of points gained in a sprint stage from 50 to 70.
“They’ve done well because it means a pure sprinter can win it,” Sagan said of the rule change, “but it’s going to be harder for riders like me and Michael Matthews [winner in 2017 after Sagan was excluded].”
Sagan raced his last Tour in 2023, but didn’t retire until the following summer, when he competed for a small Continental team Pierre Baguette on the road and mountain bike.
In early 2024, he experienced arrhythmia inflammation in which his heart rate exceeded 200 beats per minute. He underwent two surgeries to correct the issue.
“It was OK because I was not dying but it was scary what was happening,” he said. “Even the doctors couldn’t see anything when I was doing efforts. It was only after they put a controller under my skin when I continued to ride my mountain bike could they see that I had this arrhythmia.
“After they found it, performed a procedure, and everything was good. It disappeared.”
Since his retirement, Sagan has focused on his various sponsorship roles – he recently launched his own non-alcoholic beer – and even appeared on Let’s Dance, Slovakia’s version of Strictly Come Dancing.
He’s still cycling regularly – albeit a mountain bike rather than a road bike – but doesn’t foresee a return to the sport
“I don’t see myself [as a sports director or manager],” he said. “For now I don’t want to do this because I like what I’m doing now.”
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