Ten years ago Slovakia was one of the powerhouses of world championship cycling, with Peter Sagan winning the elite men\u2019s title in 2015, 2016 and 2017.<\/p>\n
A decade on the gloss has dulled somewhat, with his country having four slots in the elite men\u2019s road race, but being left unable to fill any of them with current riders. Cue panic and a completely leftfield decision by the country\u2019s selectors.<\/p>\n
Former amateur racer and current national team masseur Vladim\u00edr Kov\u00e1\u010dik has been given a late and utterly unexpected call up to the national squad and has been launched right into the deep end as a result.<\/p>\n
Kov\u00e1\u010dik, 28, last competed internationally back in 2017, a year he started nine UCI ranked or national championship races of which he was a DNF in five of them.<\/p>\n
His results were similarly modest in 2015 and 2016, the same years Sagan was at his peak, although he did take 12th on the opening stage of the 2.1-ranked Belgrade Trophy Milan Pani\u0107 in 2014.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an intimidating prospect, being thrust into competition against some of the biggest names in the sport; the stuff of nightmares, perhaps, on line with those dreams of having a math exam when you haven\u2019t studied a jot.<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s a bit of logic to it all.<\/p>\n
Had Slovakia not fielded a rider, the country\u2019s national championships would have been demoted to the B category in 2027. This in turn would have slashed the number of points available to those who perform well in those races.<\/p>\n
With former under 23 words silver and bronze medallist Martin Svr\u010dek and Matthias Schwarzbacher both injured and Luke Kubi\u0161 not released by his Unibet Rose Rockets team for the event, some creative thinking was needed.<\/p>\n
Wacky, but necessary<\/h2>\n
\u201cThe drop is half for the national champion and for the second place, almost two-thirds,\u201d national coach Jakub Van\u0107o told Sportnet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would count losses [in points] in the hundreds. These points are equivalent to victory in a World Tour stage race, which is beyond our strength.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we have to fulfill the duty of the UCI to get someone to compete for the elite race. In addition, next year will be qualifiers for the 2028 Olympic Games.\u201d<\/p>\n
World championship registration closed on September 11, meaning that no other riders could be called up.<\/p>\n
Cue Kov\u00e1\u010dik\u2019s call up, something that Van\u010do admitted to SVR was akin to ticking the box.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur participation will be only formal,\u201d he stated. \u201cWe will be represented in the form of a person who is here and formally meets the conditions and licenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are doing this for talented cyclists, who we need to keep in the ranking high and that people like Schwarzbacher, Kubi\u0161, Ri\u0161ka, Nov\u00e1k, Chlado\u0148ov\u00e1, Ungerov\u00e1 and others can get to the Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Victoria Chlado\u0148ov\u00e1 already ensured the team\u2019s campaign was a success when she won the junior women\u2019s road race on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t expect Kov\u00e1\u010dik to mimic that performance; just like math exams, you can\u2019t make up for lost ground if you don\u2019t have the work done.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/slovakia-team-masseur-thrust-into-elite-mens-worlds-despite-last-competing-nine-years-ago\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2295975246.jpg”] Updated September 26, 2026 05:59PM Ten years ago Slovakia was one of the powerhouses of world championship cycling, with Peter Sagan winning the elite men\u2019s title in 2015, 2016 and 2017. A decade on the gloss has dulled somewhat, with his country having four slots in the elite men\u2019s road race, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2166661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2166661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2166661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2166661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2166661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2166661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}