Tour de France great and three-time world champion Peter Sagan will retire from cycling’s World Tour at the end of this season.
The 33-year-old Slovakian will continue to compete, and is aiming for mountain bike gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Sagan won seven green points jerseys at the Tour de France between 2012 and 2019, and three rainbow jerseys for winning the Road World Championships.
“This is the last year you will see me in World Tour races,” he said.
“I’ll do some minor road races to reach the Olympics and from there we’ll see.”
Known for his explosive speed and power in sprints and across one-day races, Sagan only missed out on the Tour’s green jersey in 2017 following a dramatic crash which saw him excluded from the race after Mark Cavendish was taken to hospital.
The announcement is a surprise for one of cycling’s most high-profile and highest paid riders, but Sagan has only won one stage in a major race across the past three seasons.
Sagan – who is also known for entertaining fans on the bike by pulling wheelies on mountain stages he was not expected to win – did attempt to win mountain bike Olympic gold in Rio in 2016, but finished 35th.
Britain’s Tom Pidcock won mountain bike gold in Tokyo in 2021.
Sagan has won 12 Tour de France stages, and several of cycling’s biggest one-day races, including the ‘monuments’ Paris-Roubaix in 2018 and Tour of Flanders in 2016.