A few weeks Peter Sagan impressed with his great Worlds win but also with his victory speech. Sagan seemed to raise the issue of refugees, but now says he was talking about something else. "Nowadays people do not think much about what they personally want from life," said the Slovakian.

Peter Sagan surprised fmany with his speech in Richmond, a few minutes after he had conquered the rainbow jersey. "I got a lot of motivation from the problems in Europe. It is clear that something has to change in the world. This is a big problem," was the message from Sagan.

But the Slovak has told Het Nieuwsblad, which gave him the trophy of Flandrien International as best non-Belgian rider of 2015, that his speech was misinterpreted.

"I was talking about the general problems in the world," said Sagan. "Nowadays, people do not think much about what they want from life.

"We live in the 21st century, but many people are not adapted to the world. We have all the technology too quickly.

"I feel that we are forced to run beyond our age. With the changing technology and electronics, it is too hard for people."

Peter Sagan is mainly frustrated by the current trend whereby people spend too much time with their smartphone. "Nowadays children no longer play outside, but they are constantly sending messages to each other. I find that strange.

"I may be old fashioned but I hate technology. You waste your time. Life goes past them."

Sagan also asked for more respect in the peloton.

"For sure there is some responsibility with this jersey," Sagan said. "I want to do my best next year but also maybe I want to change something in cycling because of lot of things are OK but a lot of things don't work.

"I want in the group maybe more respect as well OK. The respect in the group is like nothing. If I speak with the old guys [asking] when Cipollini was in the group or somebody like that, there was lots of respect in the group. Now it's like, 'if you don't brake, I don't brake' and we crash. It's very bad mentally in the group now.

"If I can change this, I don't know, it's a big step."