With the likes of Rui Costa as a team-mate, Matej Mohoric is happy to play the role of support rider on UAE Team Emirates – for now.
The Slovenian, however, has dreams of transferring his sensational junior success onto the big stage. He made history in 2013, becoming the first rider to win the junior and U-23 World Road Race Championship in
His first four years saw him ride under four different team names, but he felt more at home with Italy’s Lampre-Merida last year, and with many staff and riders staying on at UAE Team Emirates for 2017, he’s now
starting to really become part of la familia.
Sport360‘s Matt Jones flew to Belgium last weekend to join UAE Team Emirates at the Liege- Bastogne-Liege and sat down with Mohoric.
How do you reflect looking back on the 2017 season so far?
The season has been pretty good so far. I’ve done more than 20 races and it’s all been fairly good. I feel good. I feel I’m coming into my peak right about now. The Giro was the main goal and I feel we should be able to pull something out there.
What goals do you have that you want to achieve before the end of this season?
I want to continue my progress as a rider, continue developing because I’m still pretty young, I’m only 22-years-old so I still have some years ahead of me to get better and better. I need to be patient because I’m sure my time will come in the future. Until then I just want to do my best in the races that I can, enter the best races that I can like the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race and do the best for my team and my team-mates, to help us achieve good results.
As one of the younger riders on the team, you ride in support of the likes of Louis Meintjes and Rui Costa. Are you happy to play that support role?
Yeah. Already now though I am doing pretty well. I want to continue to work as hard as I can and always do my best. You know sometimes an opportunity comes when you don’t expect it so you have to make the most of it. It will happen sooner or later. But until then I will just do my job for the team until whenever they need me. That’s also a part of cycling, it’s a team sport. Only one person wins but the whole team works hard to get the result.
As far as the future is concerned, do you have your own aims for the rest of your career, personal dreams and ambitions?
My ambitions are pretty high because I’m still young. I’ve won the World Championships twice (junior and under-23) and I think I might develop into a good rider for hard one-day races like the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, but we will see what happens. I will continue to work hard, develop myself. It’s been working pretty well so far and I’m pretty optimistic for my future.
Lampre Merida has now become UAE Team Emirates this year. How have all the new and old, and young riders settled in?
We’ve gelled together quite quickly. The attitude has been great so far. Everybody’s getting to know new people and are making new friends, but there’s also a lot of the staff and riders that were in Lampre Merida before so some of the guys, we already knew from the past. It’s going good though we do hope for more better results in the second half of the season. I think if we work hard we will be able to achieve this.
It’s a great life being a pro cyclist, but it’s also very dangerous. What’s the worst injury you’ve suffered?
The worst injury that I suffered was a broken elbow in the Tour of Qatar last season. In the crosswinds there was a crash. I saw it pretty early so I managed to put the brakes on pretty early and I stopped. But a guy then hit me from the back at speed and I crashed, landing on my elbow and breaking the bone. I had to take two weeks off from racing.
Grazes @matmohoric after the crash in the final part of today stage @TirrenAdriatico. He was leading the race! pic.twitter.com/Jt4jyJQjE1
— @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamUAEAbuDhabi) March 13, 2017
What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you while out riding your bike, during a race or in training?
The most crazy thing that happened was actually only a week and a half ago in training. I was on the flat, going at around 40km an hour, concentrating, on my own. The road was pretty wide and straight and suddenly I got hit from behind by a car. There was an old person driving it and he said he didn’t see me, and I really didn’t expect that.
It makes you think how dangerous it is in everyday life to drive on the roads. Even though you respect all the rules and do nothing wrong, you can get hit from behind. You always have to be ready for it. I’m pretty tall and I was also riding in team kit, which is pretty bright, with a red helmet and we ride bright red bicycles, so it’s kind of hard to miss me. I don’t know how he didn’t see me.
The season is long and arduous, racing and training with the team takes up a lot of your time. But away from the bike, what do you do to relax?
I like to read and at the moment, I’m also learning French so I put some time aside for that each day. I also like to do mountain biking in my spare time. Apart from that I also like to just spend time with my girlfriend and chill and relax too.
You’re learning French and I guess you also speak a little Italian as that’s the dominant language in the team with so many Italian riders?
I’m actually fluent in English and Italian. I also speak a little bit of German too and of course I’m learning French.
