Petering out?

This month, Ned ponders the dwindling powers of Peter Sagan

I've been thinking about Peter Sagan over the last few days. This is not infrequent, though I have to confess that I've thought about him less and less often over the last couple of years. The way that his winning streak peaked out, and then fell off has been bewildering in its alacrity. Such is his diminished status these days in those rather insipid Total Energies team colours, that I sometimes find myself surprised to see him still in the peloton at all. He has, of late, become something of an invisible man, which is a shame. And it is also an observation that could become a hostage to fortune, though I doubt it.

None of this is meant to be unkind to Sagan, though it could be read like that. I mean most sincerely to praise him, which I will go on to do. But, it is simply a facet of everything that I have observed from him over the course of the last two campaigns: events have overtaken him. He has been swept away by a tide that he, at least in part, gave rise to.