There were plenty of reasons why Cyclingnews opted to sit Matej Mohorič and Jakob Omrzel down one sunny December afternoon at their Bahrain Victorious training camp and try to get them to interview each other.
For one thing, it’s been over a decade since Mohorič, then tipped as one of the brightest upcoming stars in the cycling universe after he’d taken Junior and U23 World Championships titles in two successive years, turned pro at 19.
As chance would have it, that’s exactly the same age that his compatriot Omrzel has followed suit with Bahrain this January, and with similarly high expectations, too, following his wins in the Giro NextGen and the Slovenian National Championships, not to mention Paris-Roubaix Juniors earlier on. Despite a major, very dangerous, crash in September 2024, he subsequently had a successful spell as a stagiaire with the senior team – coinciding in some races with Mohorič – last year. Furthermore, they both started right out at the top, in WorldTour squads.
Since 2014, Mohorič’s versatility has proved to be one of his strongest points, ranging from his devastating downhill Poggio ride to victory in Milan-San Remo to stunning breakaway stage win solos in the Tour de France and beating João Almeida by the narrowest of margins in the Tour de Pologne. Not to mention victories and podium finishes in the Gravel World Championships and in stages of all three Grand Tours.
Within that time, though, the sport itself has seen some massive changes. In this long, in-depth discussion during the Bahrain Victorious training camp, Mohorič and Omrzel discuss everything from the pressures of being a young star and how Mohorič handled the darker side of the sport when he turned pro, to the current situation of Slovenian racing.
That last topic is hardly a small one, given that in recent years, as is well-known, Slovenian cycling has taken a massive step forward. While Mohorič’s contribution to that process can’t be underrated, it pales somewhat in comparison with what Primož Roglič and, above all, Tadej Pogačar have achieved.
Cyclingnews (CN): Question to both of you: when was the first time you heard about each other, and what was the first thing you heard about Jakob, and what was the first thing you heard about Matej?
Matej…
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