Vladimír Kovačík this morning for Slovak TV JOJ:
“When they told me that I would be racing, I was just smiling, but the closer the race got, the more stressed I became. I couldn’t even open my phone or social media, because whenever I opened Instagram, my picture was everywhere, and I’m not really used to that.
When I stepped onto the podium, I was so stressed that I wasn’t even able to find my number where I was supposed to sign in. But after all the interviews and once the race started, it got better.
Our coach Jakub Vančo just told me to enjoy it, and I wanted to test myself and see how many kilometres I would be able to hold on.
During the first 15–20 km, I tried to stay at the back, but in the meantime I even moved a little bit into the first third. I was happy that I managed to stay with the peloton at an average speed of 47 km/h until the circuits and that I was able to ride on the bridge.
Some of the biggest names of the pro cycling world even came to me during the race, shook my hand and told me some nice words. It was beautiful.
I only came home today, but tomorrow I’m going to the European Championships, this time really just as a masseur.”