"11 years. Amazing memories. Amazing friendships" - Trusted Pogacar-Roglic ally and long-time Jayco AlUla servant rides final race for team before retirement

Eleven years after joining the Australian WorldTour setup, Luka Mezgec is riding for Team Jayco AlUla for the final time.

The 38-year-old Slovenian lines up at Gooikse Pijl on Sunday in what is set to be his last appearance for the team before two final races in national colours. The World Championships road race in Montreal follows on September 27, with the European Championships on home roads in Slovenia on October 4 scheduled to bring his professional career to an end.

Ahead of his final outing with Jayco AlUla, Mezgec posted a short farewell to the organisation he first joined back in 2016. “Time with my @greenedgecycling family has come to an end. 11 years. Amazing memories. Amazing friendships. Grateful.”

The replies offered their own glimpse of the relationships built over that spell. Long-time teammate Luke Durbridge wrote, “happy it happened not sad it’s over”, while Lukas Pöstlberger added: “So happy to spent at least 1 year together in the same team.”

Matteo Trentin went for a rather more specific callback: “So no china for you?”

It was a reference to Mezgec’s retirement plans earlier this year. After being repeatedly asked over the years where he wanted to ride his final race, the Slovenian had joked that he had only ever had one real request: “Just not in China.”

Mezgec arrived at what was then Orica-GreenEDGE for the 2016 season and never left. Mitchelton-Scott, BikeExchange and Jayco AlUla followed, but the Slovenian remained a constant as both the team around him and his own role evolved.

By then, he had already established himself as one of Slovenia’s leading sprinters. His biggest individual victory came at the 2014 Giro d’Italia, where he won the final stage in Trieste and became the first Slovenian to take a stage victory at the Italian Grand Tour.

That same season brought three stage wins at the Volta a Catalunya, while his career would also include victories at races such as the Tour of Poland and a Slovenian national road title in 2017.

Later years increasingly saw Mezgec become a trusted lead-out rider and experienced road captain rather than the man sprinting for the result himself. His longevity with the Australian team was matched by an important supporting role during the greatest period Slovenian cycling has experienced.

He has raced alongside both Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar for Slovenia, including playing his part in Pogacar’s two world championship victories. When Mezgec confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with Slovenian broadcaster Siol in January, those memories were among the ones he valued most.

“I’m very grateful that I race in the time when Pogi races, and that I can watch one of the greatest in history with my own eyes,” he said. “I’m also grateful and happy that I was there and helped him win the world champion’s jersey, and twice. Not everyone gets such an opportunity, even the greatest champions and the best helpers get it only rarely or never. I consider myself lucky to have been among the protagonists of the biggest rise of Slovenian cycling. It doesn’t get better than that, even in sport in general.”

When Mezgec mapped out his farewell season at the beginning of the year, there was little left on his personal wishlist. He had enjoyed the career he wanted. More than another victory, he hoped to reach the end without being stopped by a crash or injury.

His spring could scarcely have gone further from that plan. Mezgec crashed heavily at Scheldeprijs on April 8, landing on the race radio beneath his jersey and breaking three ribs. The injuries brought his spring to an abrupt halt and cost him the chance to return to the Giro d’Italia for one final appearance. For a rider whose breakthrough Grand Tour victory had come at the Giro 12 years earlier, that opportunity was gone.

He eventually returned to racing in June and rebuilt towards the second half of the season, with the original retirement date untouched. “My only condition about the programme was that I have no more races after the European Championships, so that I can finish my career at home,” Mezgec told Siol in January. “Yes, the European Championships in Slovenia will be my last race.”

Even amid the disrupted farewell year, that remains the plan.

Gooikse Pijl now closes Mezgec’s 11-year association with the GreenEDGE organisation. After Sunday, his remaining appearances are scheduled to come exclusively in Slovenian colours.

Montreal will be his final World Championships, where Slovenia head into the elite men’s road race with Roglic rather than Pogacar as their headline leader. One week later comes the ending Mezgec specifically requested: a European Championships on home roads.

His professional career began at WorldTour level with Argos-Shimano in 2013 and leaves behind far more than the supporting role for which many newer cycling fans now know him. A Giro stage winner, former Slovenian champion and long-time WorldTour sprinter, Mezgec has also spent the final phase of his career helping a remarkable Slovenian generation make history of its own.

The trade-team chapter ends after 11 seasons with Jayco AlUla and its predecessors. Montreal and Slovenia are all that remain before Mezgec calls time on 14 seasons in the professional peloton.