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Sagan Still Hurting Ahead of Paris-Roubaix

By Monica Buck

The Slovak is still in pain after the unfortunate crash at the Tour of Flanders. The world champ initially took the blame on himself but the video footage clearly showed that a fan’s jacket hung down the wrong side of the barrier and got caught in Sagan’s wheel. Naesen and Van Avermaet were able to hop on their bikes quickly but Peto took the fall hard.

“Everything was OK and fine, nothing was broken and there were no fractures. All of his muscles hurt and some small things, it’s painful but nothing serious. We will see today how everything is,” Bora-Hansgrohe‘s Enrico Poitschke told Cycling Weekly.

Sagan eventually rode on at the Tour of Flanders but only did a two-hour training the day after.

“Could it affect Paris-Roubaix? That was a hard crash and all the crashes take something out of you. He feels OK and he rode right after the crash, but it’s far from perfect. Day by day it has gotten better. Today, we will see how it goes in the race and then we will see afterwards how he is,” Poitschke commented ahead of the Scheldeprijs race yesterday.

Will Sagan back down from his aggressive style of riding? Not likely.

“The guys know that it’s dangerous to be so close to the spectators, but in the race, you’re sometimes so focused and you can’t watch everything. It was only bad luck and we hope that in the next races he is without problems,” Poitschke told Cycling Weekly.

It looks like we’re in for another good one this weekend.