Just weeks after his imminent retirement on Sunday at the European Road Championships, Slovenian veteran racer Luka Mezgec is set to join Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe as a sports director.
Appropriately enough for a rider best-known for his sprinting and leadout work during a 17- year career, Mezgec will waste no time at all heading to the German WorldTour squad, where he'll begin work.
After breaking the news on the Slovenian radio station, Radio 1, Mezgec told specialist sports website Sportal that one of the main missions in his new job will be working with young Italian sprinter Alessio Magagnotti.
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Part of the Red Bull Rookie squad, the 19-year-old already won a stage of the Deutschland Tour this summer, when he raced as a stagiere with the senior team.
"For some time now, I have had the desire to remain in cycling as a sports director after my career ends. In the end, I had three options, and of these, Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe seemed the most interesting," Mezgec, who signed his contract with Red Bull during the 2026 Tour, told Sportal.
"Alessio is a very young sprinter who will move from the development team to the pros next year, and I can offer him all the experience I have gained over the years as a sprinter and later as a lead-out man."
During his 17 seasons as a pro, the last 11 with Jayco-AlUla, Mezgec's biggest win was the last stage of the 2014 Giro d'Italia in Trieste. Amongst his 19 victories, he also took two stage victories in the Tour de Pologne and the Volta a Catalunya, whilst also spending a memorable day in a 140km break with Tadej Pogačar at the Slovenian National Championships back in 2023.
Set to meet with his new team just a few weeks away, Mezgec explained it would be difficult for him to have a role working with the GC challengers in the squad, because it was so far outside his own knowledge.
As he wryly put it, "I don't know what it's like if there are three of us left at the end of the race; I only know what it's like if there's a bunch. It would be difficult for me to explain things that I've never experienced myself.
"But I know what it's like in the bunch, how the preparation for a sprint works and what a sprinter needs. I can pass on these experiences to him."
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