Two years later, we meet in the lobby of the same hotel and the circumstances are very similar. But is this the same man sitting next to me? Although he gets most of the attention when he lets his emotions pour out without any restraint, there is more of an unspoken confidence and calmness about him now. In my mind, this was supposed to be a story of great highs and gradual recovery from the lows, but if I really believed that it was up to me to make that decision, it would mean that I hadn’t learned anything yet. What emerges is a tale about sacrifice, which makes all the choices simpler, even if life as a whole becomes more complicated because of it. About dedicating oneself to passion to the point of emotional exhaustion. About building a position in the peloton, evolving into a natural leader and the responsibility that allows the strongest to thrive. About Matej Mohorič, who never stops dreaming, but doesn’t dream foolishly.
A hot summer of 2021 that seemed to have no end. An individual time trial in the sweltering heat of Katowice which, as promised, turned out to be the best of his career so far. The blazing cobbles of the Muur van Geraardsbergen, where the Bahrain Victorious team took reign of chaos, with Mohorič and Colbrelli keeping strongest cards up their sleeves. A new time of the year, but the same balance of power, as the Slovenian leads the peloton through the flooded sectors of autumn’s Paris-Roubaix and the Italian celebrates his greatest triumph. It would turn out to be his last. Months of preparation for those few moments that would remind the world that only Matej Mohorič, the new king of Sanremo, could be so fearless in the face of reason. The Tour de France, on the eve of which the police are once again knocking on the door, while the 21 stages bring only unanswered questions. A long recovery and a Croatian stage race to wipe away the tears. A spring campaign in which high form and high ambition are not adequately rewarded. Tragic news from Switzerland. A long-awaited triumph on Slovenian roads, not for himself but pointing to the sky. A Grand Boucle that unites, even if the 28-year-old Slovenian again keeps everyone waiting. Another stage win against the odds, another emotional outburst, another memorable interview. A return to Poland in a much colder summer to complete what he failed to do last time….
So much has happened between then and now. I won’t start at the beginning this time, though, so if you want to find out about Matej’s upbringing, how cycling came into his life, and why wet descents are his element, I encourage you to read our conversation from two years ago HERE.
Bielsko-Biała, 2023
This race, in which he might not have participated at all, turns out to be an unexpected gift for me. It will remain one until the very end, but while it lasts it is all about the little things. The role of Tour de Pologne leader, which the Bahrain-Victorious rider has held since winning the second stage with the finish at Orlinek, means that we meet him every day in the mixed zone once the rivalry is over. The scraps of sentences and impressions I steal from there help me to complete the picture of the person I have built up so far on the basis of conversations held in more comfortable conditions.
The stage to Bielsko-Biała takes an unexpected turn when, in front of the leading group, a TV motorbike falls off the route and hits a family standing on the roadside. The race radio goes conspicuously silent, and the final lap leaves the Tour de Pologne organisers little time to decide whether to stop the race as it draws to a close. The riders themselves could intervene. The peloton is clearly slowing down, Mohorič doesn’t want to go on, and you’d think that as the yellow jersey he would be able to reach out to the riders, having spoken so eloquently on their behalf after winning the last stage of the Grand Boucle. But this is not the case. Competition is in the blood of every one of them and, as is so often the case, one rider quickly breaks away from the pack.
The Slovenian’s will to fight was enough to secure second place and another bonus seconds, very important in the context of the individual time trial the following day, but it was just a job. A task that had to be done. He comes in shaken, angry, a little disappointed. He doesn’t want to talk about what happened earlier, even though the questions come from a genuine lack of information rather than a search for sensationalism or catchy quotes. It’s this side of his personality that I can’t seem to reach. I am bouncing off the wall, wondering if it still makes sense to go through with the interview arranged for the next morning.
Czeladź, 2023
The new day, however, brings a return to calm, familiar waters, and the leader of Bahrain Victorious bears no resemblance to the man who, in a few hours’ time, is supposed to be fighting for the overall victory in the race. He is relaxed, committed and open. That’s something I can work with, although it’s fair to say that Mohorič, as usual, is picking up most of the slack. Nothing has changed in that respect either.
Struck by the mental transformation that had taken place in the 28-year-old Slovenian in the space of a dozen hours, I abandoned the prepared scenario for a while and went straight to talking about emotions.
Aleksandra Górska: You’re quite an emotional person, aren’t you?
Matej Mohorič: Yes…
He was clearly surprised by such an opening, even though moments earlier I had asked him, off the record, how he was feeling. We are both Slavs, after all, we do not make small talk out of mere politeness.
Every conversation has its own atmosphere, natural rhythm and context, and the combination of all of these sometimes makes it impossible or unwise to ask certain very important questions. However, this does not mean that the answers you are looking for cannot be found between other lines, so instead of returning to the events of June, I have referred to the previous afternoon.
MM: Yeah, sometimes things happen that put life into perspective and also that put your job or sport into perspective. Of course — if you’re focused on results, then you can sometimes forget about life in general, and about other things that also matter. But then, when accidents like this happen, you realise that there are things bigger than this sport. In a situation like yesterday, then it’s also difficult to mentalize in a few moments back to try to win a bike race.
So how does Matej, so sensitive to everything going on around him, manage to stay mentally balanced, motivated and driven to win?
MM: I think, how I do this is, I know in myself why I do my job, why I like cycling, and why I chose to be a professional bike rider – and this helps me to have a clear focus on my mind and get over the difficulties. And switch the focus on what matters in that moment, no? I know that I work really hard and sacrifice a lot of other values that I have in life to be competitive here today. So you quickly refocus to have a very strong desire to try and deliver the best possible result you can, not just for yourself, but also for all the team around you, who work just as hard as you do to give you the best possible support.
So when it comes to work, rational judgement takes precedence over emotion.
MM: I rationalise it, yes. But also, since the very start, since I was 18 years old, it was not an easy decision for me to be a professional bike rider, because it was not my only choice. Some of my colleagues maybe were not as good at other things as they were in cycling, so it was an obvious choice for them, which makes their life quite a bit easier, because they don’t have a desire to do something else, or a chance to do something else, or an interest in something else. But I was always a person with thousands of interests.
You might be wondering what those other choices were? So did I. But I was taken aback by the self-congratulatory declaration that the Slovenian was good at everything he took on in life. Knowing him a little, however, this is not hard to believe, and false modesty would be no match for his sincerity and openness.
MM: Almost anything I started with in my life was of interest to me, no?
AG: Because you engage?
MM: Because I engage, yes. Because I care about things. I was always very curious as a child, and I loved to go to school. I would also very much like to pursue an academic career, I was one of the best students in high school that I went to. And actually most of my professors, when they realised, when they read in the media that I signed a professional bike rider contract, they were surprised, some of them even borderline disappointed, because cycling was not as popular as it is now back then. Maybe because they saw a talent in me to do something that would, I don’t know, help society more than being a professional bike rider would.
Although he has been mistreated by the cycling community on one or two occasions in the past, he has come to understand that both the sport and the recognition that comes with competing at the highest level can do a lot of good. It brings people a whole range of emotions and a much-needed break.
MM: But then, on the other hand, 10 years, no, 12 years later, when you see what happened in this year’s Tour, I also feel happiness and pride that I chose what I chose, that I chose it with my heart, and I think that sport definitely has a place in society because it motivates people. It makes them bring the best out in themselves, it makes them think about things…
AG: It makes them feel things…?
MM: Yes, it makes them feel things, it makes them feel emotions and it can change people’s lives. It makes them also, it’s not just entertainment, it makes them forget about their own struggles and maybe put their own struggles into perspective, no? Because sometimes, when bad things happen, they’re maybe just happy that they’re okay. So yeah, it’s many things.
Talking to Mohorič about cycling is a constant balancing act between what is work, and therefore the subject of cool analysis, and what is love, which sometimes unleashes a powerful avalanche of emotions of very different shades. But the 28-year-old athlete from the Bahrain Victorious team is constructed in such a way that first there is a duty, a task to be accomplished, and then there is the time to give vent to feelings. What binds one to the other is the dedication and commitment he shows at every turn.
MM: But first and foremost, I think the cause of all of this was that I was in love, in love with cycling, not cycling as a sport, but cycling as a way of spending your free time on a bicycle, and riding. And this keeps me up, because I know that even if I had an office job, I would probably still need to cycle every day. So it is probably better that they pay me for it and I don’t need to go to a normal job [laughing].
Le Creusot i Libourne, 2021
In between our conversations, life came full circle, from one phenomenal summer, begun somewhere on the French roads, to another. The season between them blossomed early but never bore fruit, plagued by diseases invisible to the naked eye. Yet it is not difficult to see a pattern.
Even the circumstances of our meeting, from the place to the time – the morning before the decisive individual time trial of the Tour de Pologne – are exactly the same, so having already returned to the original scenario, I had to ask what was different. How has the perception of the Slovenian as a rider and the expectations that come with it changed? Can he point to a single moment when he felt this happened?
MM: After my first Tour stage win it has changed.
AG: So no Milano-Sanremo?
MM: No, no. I would say that 2018 was my breakthrough year when I won maybe seven or eight races I think, I don’t remember.
AG: Yes, but now I’m talking about a wider audience. For the people who only watch the biggest races, it has certainly taken a lot longer for them to notice you.
MM: Yeah, after the first stage win at the Tour, people really noticed me. And then because the same year I won another stage, they notice you even more, no? And since then they also, not just people in general, not just the cycling fans, but also competitors, they look at you in a different way. For me, in a way it makes things easier, makes things more simple, because they look at me more. When there is an attack, when there is a selection and I’m there, they look at me more, they pay more attention. So okay, it might be harder to slip away, but it also gives you more space to fight because people tend to choose your wheel to follow, fight for your wheel because they want to be behind you, make sure that they follow your move rather than push out of the way because they want to be in someone else’s wheel. And for me, this makes things much easier, because then it’s more likely that I’m there when the crucial moments happen.
The subject of knowing one’s place in the group, in its hierarchy, will come up again, but it is already worth noting that for Mohorič, perhaps for purely practical reasons, it is more important how he is perceived by other riders who are part of the professional peloton. How he is seen by road cycling fans doesn’t seem to matter to him as long as it doesn’t lead to direct attacks and unfair judgements (like in the second part of the 2021 Tour de France), and in this relationship he is only focused on giving. Being admired is not one of his needs.
First, however, I decided to explore in more detail the aforementioned battle for position and being in the right place at the right time, and I count as my own small victory that this time I was able to successfully hold back the flow of his thoughts.
Flandria, 2023
If there is one theme that seems to be repeated in everything that is written about the 28-year-old Slovenian, it is his passion for reading, learning, analysing and learning from his own mistakes. Or not just his own. Certainly, the last two campaigns of the Northern Classics have provided plenty of opportunities to do so, where Mohorič’s great days (Paris-Roubaix 2022, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2023, E3 Saxo Bank Classic 2023) have not been sufficiently rewarded, but any mistakes have been ruthlessly punished.
We spoke at length two years ago about the Bahrain Victorious rider’s technical prowess, albeit with an emphasis on descents, but fighting for position is usually an equally effective weapon in his arsenal. If Matej is still out there somewhere, ready to put up a fight, you can easily spot his distinctive silhouette near the front of the main bunch. But there are few races where this art is more difficult than the one-day events held on the Belgian and French cobbles, which have tested his considerable skills on more than one occasion in recent months.
MM: This is always something I do very well, I think I do it better than the most. But still, to be in the position that eight riders finish at being, you can’t be 100% successful. You can be very successful, but even if you’re 60% successful, it’s quite a lot. And in those races, if you’re an exceptional-exceptional-world class-absolutely best rider in the world, then maybe you can make it back, crawl your way back somehow, if you have crazy good legs. But if not, then you need to be in position when the attack happens, no? And if you’re out, you’re just out. So, yeah, sometimes things happen in the classics, that’s why it’s very rare that the same guy would win all of the classics, because there’s always one that’s the strongest, and some others that are almost as strong, and then the third tier of riders that are still strong enough to win, but physically not the same as the favourites. And this is what makes the classics so beautiful, no? Because there is a wide selection of riders who actually have a chance of winning, not all have the same chance of winning, but they still have a chance.
Sanremo, 2022
There were also classics where all the stars seemed to shine just for Mohorič, such as the 113th edition of Milano-Sanremo. The Slovenian’s participation in the longest one-day race on the cycling calendar was preceded by weeks of meticulous preparation, because he alone represents the mixture of naive arrogance and nerdy madness needed to believe that you can plan to win the most open of monuments. And yet he did plan. And, if the rumours are to be believed, he was informing his rivals about it with a smile before the race even started.
The dropper seatpost did not ultimately 'break cycling’ in the way that the supertuck position did, nor did it win Matej La Classicissima, as the mischievous later tried to suggest, but it certainly helped on his heart-stopping descent of the Poggio – even if the biggest added value was the confidence boost.
In addition to his natural ability to compete over such long distances, the favourable finale, his meticulous preparation and a lot of hard work, on that Saturday in March even the smallest details fell into place for the Bahrain Victorious rider: the direction of the wind on the final climb, the lack of major cracks in the leading group and a younger compatriot at the front who, knowing what was in store, was not prepared to give his life to stop Mohorič and his crazy dream of winning Milano-Sanremo. It was that moment of hesitation behind his back that allowed us to talk about the biggest win of his career so far, rather than another top ten result in the first monument of the season.
MM: Exactly, there are some days that just the stars align and the team makes a perfect effort, and you keep the focus and desire. So yeah, you need to make the most of those opportunities, because it’s not every race that it happens, it happens maybe one or two times a year. And it’s up to you if you make it count or not.
AG: It’s very hard to plan to win Sanremo…
MM: Yes, because it’s probably the most open monument there is.
AG: Everything happens very quickly after nothing happens at all…
MM: Yes, it’s a very intense hour of racing and you need to execute things absolutely perfectly. I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of luck involved. It’s actually all pretty calculated. The effort up the Poggio is pretty honest, as honest as it can be.
The stunt descent of the Poggio, the awe-inspiring technique and the undeniable courage of the then 27-year-old Slovenian were still talked about for several weeks. At the same time, one could get the impression that his victory at Milano-Sanremo – the first monument of his career – did not impress the public half as much as those rare moments when he happened to talk too much, to explode, to let his emotions flow uncontrollably. Although a triumph in one of the five biggest one-day races means more to cycling’s most passionate fans than even a few stage wins in the Grand Boucle, no other event guarantees anything like the same level of recognition. Only the Tour de France makes it possible to get known outside the little bubble we live in.
MM: Oh, not necessarily. I think it’s made some [splash]. Also, obviously, when you win the monument, you become a different rider in other riders’ eyes. It also depends on the local knowledge, but for sure, when I come to Italy, everyone still talks about that Sanremo. So yeah, it’s definitely a huge achievement. There are fewer riders who won a monument compared to riders who won a stage at the Tour. Obviously, more people watch the Tour compared to Sanremo, but people who really follow the sport more closely, they know that it’s harder to win a monument than a stage at the Tour.
It is even harder to win stages of all three grand tours and a monument: in the entire history of road cycling, 38 riders have achieved such a feat, six of whom are still active (Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan, John Degenkolb, Thibaut Pinot, Primoz Roglic and Matej Mohorič).
It is not as if the 28-year-old from the village outside Kranj has said his last word in terms of monumental achievements. This year the conditions at the finale of La Classicissima were less favourable for him, and the race itself was not the focal point of his spring campaign. However, Matej knows that if he avoids mistakes and the stars are once again aligned, he is capable of taking another victory in Sanremo.
MM: I think I made some mistakes this year, I know exactly what I made that was not perfect and I will make sure that I learned that lesson for next year. In my head, I know I can win Sanremo again. Also, the condition I was in this year was not peak-peak condition, because I didn’t plan for it. I planned for being in peak condition for Flanders and Roubaix, which also happened and showed in the races, and the way we analysed. So yeah, I think we’ve learned a lot of things this year and we will take that with us for next year.
Just like the stages of the Tour de France, Milano-Sanremo is no longer a dream, but a realistic goal. The dream now lies on the treacherous roads of northern France.
Roubaix, 2022
The water has barely had time to dry off the cobbles after the extraordinary autumn edition of Paris-Roubaix, which brought Sonny Colbrelli and the Bahrain Victorious team one of their most memorable triumphs, before the riders were back on the start line of the Hell of the North in Compiegne. It came less than a month after the then 30-year-old Italian collapsed unexpectedly after a stage finish at the Volta a Catalunya, and with his future in the professional peloton seemingly doomed, the Bahraini team’s performance at the third monument of the season was accompanied by a mixture of extreme emotions.
However, as it would turn out, not for the first time and not for the last, unexpected adversity has a highly motivating effect on this team and Matej is a good leader in a crisis. Six months earlier, at the front of a uniform mass of black rain jackets, he had slithered through water and mud, working towards Colbrelli’s eventual success. This time, on a dry and sunny Easter Sunday, he had to follow in his footsteps. Did he pull it off?
Surprisingly, the peloton splits in the wind after just 15 kilometres of racing and the INEOS Grenadiers riders are in their element. However, the frantic chase continues, as does the brutal elimination that is typical of the Hell of the North, and as the leading group emerges from the Arenberg Forest – usually the scene of the first major shake-ups – only Mohorič, Tom Devriendt and Laurent Pichon remain at the front. In the 90 kilometres between them and the finish line at the old velodrome, there will be plenty of reshuffles, crashes and defects that the three will not be able to avoid, but each of them will finish the 119th edition of Paris-Roubaix in the top ten. The Slovenian, who had spent much of the race in escape artist mode, more often taking the lead than benefiting from the work of others, would eventually run out of steam in the final sprint. And yet, everything that happened on the course that day must have made him believe that the dream he had already harboured was real.
AG: Talking about the classics… Roubaix is your dream?
MM: Yeah, Paris-Roubaix is on the list of my dreams, because it still stays with me what happened in 2021 with Sonny. It was actually the only race that I looked up to when I was a child. To me it was always a big show, I couldn’t wait to see it on television.
The nature of this race, which forces teams to be meticulous and careful in their choice of equipment, suits the Bahrain Victorious leader. Its sometimes cruel unpredictability, less so.
AG: You need a lot of luck to win this race and for how I see you, you’re not a person that wants to rely strongly on luck?
MM: No, I don’t rely on luck. I think you need luck, but then you create your own luck because you choose your tire pressure, you choose your material, you choose where you ride in the peloton, you choose when to invest energy and when to stay in the peloton. Of course, you can get lucky, but if you focus and if you keep the switch on at all times, and if you have a team strong enough to keep you out of trouble, then I think if you have really good legs, you’re able to make a good result.
You make your own luck, there is no arguing with that. Worse yet, if the cyclist riding right in front of you on the Trouee d’Arenberg isn’t very good at it.
Poznań, 2023
Just 24 hours before the teams presentation at the Poznań International Fairs, the full Bahrain Victorious line-up for the 80th edition of the Tour de Pologne is still unknown. On the unofficial start list, Mohorič remains a question mark and I find myself thinking that he shouldn’t be here. But that’s not the way to welcome the winner of Milano-Sanremo in your home town, is it?
He eventually arrives, and before he even gets on stage, I manage to catch a few sentences that quickly cause quite a stir in the Polish and foreign media. The leader of the Bahrain Victorious team says that he waited until the last minute to make a decision about his forthcoming starts, finally choosing the Tour de Pologne and the Renewi Tour (although that particular name did not come out of anyone’s mouth at the time) instead of San Sebastian and the World Championships in Glasgow.
Matej Mohorič still has dreams, and they are definitely big, like once about Primavera and now about Roubaix, but he is not in the habit of cheating himself. He also knows that he has reached the point in his 10-year career where he needs to start effectively capitalising on all the effort he has put in over that period, and that being a big fish in a small pond sometimes brings greater rewards – if not individually, then collectively.
MM: I think I found my place. I know what I’m good at, I know the races that I can aim to win, because I don’t have the engine to be on the level with the best-best riders in the world. There are some that are better, and I want to achieve the most that I can within what’s possible for me. This was also part of the reason why I came here, why I will go to Renewi Tour to go for the GC there as well, and why I don’t go to the World Championships. Because if I come 6th in the World Championships, it’s a great result, but it won’t change my career. But if I can win maybe three or four more races this year and score some good points, the team will be very pleased with that and our effort will be in a way rewarded.
Puy de Dome, 2023
This is perhaps the biggest difference between this year’s encounter and the last. Back then, shortly after his first stage wins in the Grand Boucle, the Slovenian focused a lot on how many years of learning from his mistakes had taken him to get to this level. And that he finally belonged to it. However, there was a small, barely perceptible question mark after the full stop: was it for sure? Or for good?
Nearly 29, Mohorič knows exactly what he is capable of and how to turn his greatest strengths into victories. That is not to say that doubts never creep in. The interview he gave after winning stage 19 of this year’s Tour de France, which united the cycling world at least for a moment, was both touching and inspiring, but it was ultimately not the events on the route between Moirans-en-Montagne and Poligny that sparked it.
The cause was probably the overwhelming feeling of weakness during the previous edition of the French Grand Tour, which was only properly diagnosed after the race was over, and the memory of which lingered in the subconscious, even if this time everything started very differently for the Bahrain Victorious rider.
The Slovenian is in the breakaway of the day on the stage that finishes on the Puy de Dome, returning after a 35-year hiatus, although this may not have been the original plan – not given the characteristics of the final climb and the riders who went up the road with him. He may have made the mistake of not following Matteo Jorgenson, but he does his own thing, squeezing as much as he can out of the hilly terrain on the approach to Clermont-Ferrand in order to tire out the other companions. When the talented American falters on the ascent to the extinct volcano, the chance of an unlikely triumph suddenly presents itself to the Bahrain Victorious rider. But it disappears just as quickly, when a dancing Michael Woods appears behind his back to remind everyone that this is his kingdom. Mohorič finally crosses the line in third place, and although he looks incredibly tired, he is in great shape. I think I’d be surprised if he didn’t snatch one of the 21 pieces of cake for himself.
But then come the difficult days. There are stages on the route of the 110th Tour de France that are ideal for riders with the Slovenian’s characteristics, but then it is impossible to slip away. There are too many contenders, the level is too even, and the most talked-about favourites follow each other like shadows – not only Mohorič, but also Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert have found this out. In a Grand Boucle where no one is able to pick their days, except perhaps Victor Campenaerts and Krists Neilands, Matej is part of another unlikely breakaway, this time beaten by Michał Kwiatkowski and Grand Colombier. Although it’s already been a successful race for the Bahrain Victorious team, who are riding with Gino Mäder in their hearts, the heat, the frenetic pace and the demanding route are starting to wear down the morale.
AG: So you know your place, you know what you can do, and yet sometimes I look at you, like during the Tour this year, and I can literally see your doubts. You still doubt yourself sometimes?
MM: Yes.
AG: For some reason you ended up riding in that breakaway on stage to Puy de Dome, and you looked brilliant – as long as you could. And then, harder days came and you lost your confidence?
MM: No, it’s just that today the level is so high and so balanced within the sport, because the sport is getting more professional, more supervised, more detailed. All teams put a lot of money into research and improving the materials, improving science behind the sport. And this brings everyone on a higher level, and from a higher level it’s much harder to make a small difference to win a race. And it’s clear that physical strength of a rider is not as important as it was 10 years ago, so other things make a difference.
I think you need to really keep the mental focus to do your best and use your strength to beat your competitors, because it’s a very closely matched sport. If we think of the best, best, best in the world, they are maybe on another level, but the rest of us is pretty similar.
Looking from the outside at how the races – especially the grand tours – are changing, how chaotic and difficult to control the Tour de France has become in recent years, how quickly the level has risen and at the same time become more and more equal, one could be forgiven for thinking that road cycling has transformed by leaps and bounds over the past few seasons. It turns out, however, that from the middle of the professional peloton the picture is a little different.
MM: No, it’s been gradual, because it’s every year there’s new things that we learn about nutrition, about training, about racing. It’s not too long since the sport moved on from its dark past, so everyday we’re still learning and I think that we are far from perfection. I think it’s gonna get a lot more detailed in upcoming years so we will need to work with it. We need to keep investing in research and development and also in young talent because now also young riders can win races straight away, so the teams will need a lot of focus and a lot of attention if they want to stay competitive.
Poligny, 2023
Even though there are only three days to go in the Tour de France and the peloton has already crossed the Pyrenees, the Massif Central, the Jura and the Alps, the pace is not slowing down, it is picking up. Friday’s stage is the last realistic chance for the escape artists, so the attacks seem to never stop and everyone is on their knees very quickly. When a group of nine riders breaks away from the peloton 55 kilometres into the stage, it looks like the riders remaining in the main bunch will finally be able to catch their breath – until all the Shimano neutral car bikes prove too small for Nils Politt, one of the strongest men up the road. The intermediate sprint brings a whole new set of hands, but 36 riders is far too many for effective cooperation. Kasper Asgreen, Ben O’Connor and Mohorič know this and use the last categorised climb of the day to fight for a stage win in a more intimate setting.
Riding a wave of success from the previous day, the Dane is the strongest of the lot. The Slovenian is cool-headed and tactically astute. The Australian, out of his natural habitat, fits in with the other two, just as Mohorič did with the Puy de Dome and the Grand Colombier. The three ride together through the flamme rouge and after three and a half hours of racing on a stage that will prove to be the fifth fastest in the history of the Tour de France, a photo finish is called for.
Matej likes things to be done perfectly, a term he often uses himself, and a perfectly executed bike throw wins him the stage.
Moments later this happens…
AG: In the end you won the stage, you did the interview and then it turned out that most of the riders felt exactly the same way as you did, they just didn’t show it.
MM: Yes.
AG: I don’t know if you know this, but you have this way of expressing your emotions – it’s not just what you say, it’s how it looks and feels – that resonates strongly with other people.
MM: Yes, because I think every one of us has everyday struggles and that interview was relatable to not just the cyclists, but also people with other jobs. I could feel how other riders in the Tour felt because we all are on the same boat, we all do the same races, we all hurt each other because we all want to win, and we can all feel that we are almost the same, no? Similar bikes, similar skinsuits, similar helmets, similar way of training, similar way of nutrition and similar talent for physical strength, so it’s very hard to make a difference. And a lot of riders fail in the crucial moments mentally, and sometimes it just makes you feel bad for them, because you know that they’ve worked just as hard as you, and they didn’t get as much attention or results as you did. So yeah, you feel for them.
On a previous occasion I wrote that Matej Mohorič is exactly what he seems to be, only more so. I stand by that opinion, even though the last two years, and especially the last two months, have changed the way he is perceived. Quite wrongly.
Mohorič, who with a few gestures tells everyone to shut up, and Mohorič, who gives this moving interview, are exactly the same person – not even two different, but one side of the same coin. The sources of this kind of self-expression, sincerity and intensity of emotion lie in exactly the same place.
The other thing is that while the cogs in his mind may be working at an extremely efficient rate, the words that come out of his mouth can sometimes be even faster. Occasionally perhaps a little too fast.
Czeladź, 2023
At this point I would like to warn against mistaking the Slovenian’s emotionality for any kind of fragility. Most of the time he is calm, strong and confident, not doubting or breaking down. He’s also one of those guys who not only doesn’t crack under the pressure of responsibility, but seems to thrive on it, which has allowed the Bahrain Victorious rider to evolve into the natural leader of his team without unnecessary tension or trickery. If you ask anyone on the staff about Matej, all you will hear is „Matej is always fine”, „he is the last person I would worry about”.
AG: Would you say that this ability makes you a natural leader of your team?
MM: Yes, I think so. I think there are guys who can accept the responsibility and I bear with the responsibility really well, because if a team with a lot of pressure, a lot of money that they invested in, names you as a leader for a certain task, then you also need to be up for a challenge. Not everyone can sustain the pressure, not everyone can perform under pressure and do their best. But I think I can squeeze a little bit more out of myself if I feel that my work and my performance matters for the others, than if I was just racing for myself.
AG: Responsibility makes you stronger…
MM: Yes, I think so.
But nobody is perfect, not even Matej Mohorič. Perhaps no one in the Bahrain Victorious team needs to worry about him, but I know from first-hand sources that the Slovenian is also someone who needs to be won over with arguments that are irrefutable. He likes to make his own decisions. He likes to do things the way he thinks is best – and ideally that way should be perfect. He sometimes reacts impulsively and says much more in the heat of the moment than he should, even if he means no harm. But what does the 28-year-old Slovenian find most annoying about himself?
AG: Last question. Because of this interview, but also because of the way you usually behave, people have rediscovered you and have been very captivated by what they have found. I even dare to call it love. Perversely, though, I wonder if you could name one thing you don’t like about Matej Mohorič?
MM: One thing I don’t like about myself? (small laugh)
AG: Or you can give me a couple!
(bigger laugh)
MM: There are sometimes so many things that I want to do in my life, because it’s hard for me to say ‘no’, that I end up hurting myself because I’m not egoistic enough. And then I start to be late for other things or have too many things to do, as happened when I was supposed to focus on training before the Tour, and stuff like this. So this is probably the thing that bothers me the most, and also the fact that I do this doesn’t help the time that I could spend with my family sometimes.
So I was given a flaw that was not really a flaw. I was in no position to complain, however, because the very same day I found out for myself that it was true. Matej, whenever possible, always gives more of himself than you dare to ask. Sometimes twice as much.
And he’s not such a bad time trialist after all.
Interviewer: Aleksandra Górska
