"It will be a decisive year for my career. We'll see whether I can be the leader" - Mathias Vacek about big goals for 2024, including Grand Tour debut
Cycling
Mathias Vacek was one of the most promising juniors back in the day, winning European ITT Championships in 2020. Then, two years later, then 20-years-old Vacek came second at U23 road events of both World and European Championships. Now, another two seasons down the road, the Czech rider hopes to make the most important step of his career and establish himself among the world's top classic specialists, he tells WeLoveCycling.
Vacek was initially scheduled to kick off his season at Volta ao Algarve in February, but the plans have changed and the 21-year-old will kick off his season at Tour Down Under. "It was decided I would go to Australia and I agreed. The profiles suite me, and I might get a chance to ride for myself there, as we don't have a clear leader. It's always better to do a real race than just train."
The main focus remains at classics however. In past, it wasn't very clear what type of rider would Vacek become, but it now seems that he found himself at Flemish roads. "It's my absolute priority, the 2023 campaign was already decent, so now I hope for even more in 2024. A victory would be great. It will be a decisive year for my career. We'll see whether I can be the leader myself or just a domestique."
Currently the Czech National champion, Vacek hopes to nominate for the Paris Olympics road race, on a circuit that could suit him. Later in what's going to be a big year for Vacek, he should normally make a debut appearance at Grand Tour, riding Vuelta a Espana.
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024