Peter Sagan is preparing to make his surprise return to road racing at the Tour de Hongrie on Wednesday with the Slovakian team Pierre Baguette.
The three-time world champion ended his road career with TotalEnergies last year and turned his focus to racing mountain bikes to try to qualify for the Paris Olympics. However, his attempts were halted when he experienced abnormal heart rhythms and had to undergo surgery in February.
Sagan came back quickly after the first procedure but then relapsed and had a second surgery in March, and lost a lot of fitness during the month-long recovery, he said.
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"Now I'm already three weeks on the bike and back in training," Sagan said last week in a video on Cyclism'Actu.
At the Tour de Hongrie, he said, "My expectation is to have some race kilometres, and for sure if I finish the Tour of Hungary it will put me at another level. I have no big ideas to do something because I know it's very hard - there are some riders who are training from October, November, and December and did big preparation before this race, and I'm out of this because of the heart surgery and recovery. I lost a lot of preparation.
"After that, I'll see how I feel - if my problem is solved or it's going to come back. Nobody knows. I have no expectations. The next plan I'm going to do I'll set after Tour of Hungary."
Sagan is reuniting with his brother, former pro Juraj, and former Bora-Hansgrohe director Ján Valach in the Pierre Baguette team.
"I'm very happy to be part of this team and to help the young guys," Sagan said. "I'm from Slovakia and now this is the biggest team in Slovakia. My brother is working in the team and another DS in the team Ján Valach, we did like 10 years together in road cycling WorldTour.
"I'm very happy to be in this environment and maybe give some experience I had in my career to the young guys and see how they grow. Maybe to [help] some rider from this team make it in cycling."
The Tour de Hongrie begins on Wednesday with a pan-flat stage from Karcag to Hajdúszoboszló.
"I know that the first two stages are really flat for the sprinters and then the third stage has some climbs. After that, there are some stages up and down. There are many for the fast riders. I can expect some competition because a lot of WorldTour riders are coming. I'm also happy to see some of my friends from the old years," Sagan said.
He'll be reunited on the start line by former sprint rivals Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla), Sam Welsford (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers).
