Current UCI World Road Race champion Peter Sagan was missing from the Olympic road race in Rio August 6; the funniest man in the peloton had other plans. Just weeks after finishing the 2016 Tour de France, he spent the day racing with the locals in Alta, Wyoming, apparently in preparation for the Olympic Cross Country Mountain Bike race on August 21.

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Sagan kitted up for the 50km Pierre's Hole bike race at Grand Targhee Resort, taking the win by 21'42" aboard a full-suspension Specialized bike. His finishing time was just a bit over two hours on the technical course, which featured 3,600 feet of climbing.

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It's a bit of a head-scratcher that Sagan opted to race in Wyoming rather than go head-to-head with the sport's top riders at the World Cup in Mont-Sainte-Anne—especially since both events took place on the same day. While he hasn’t publicly explained his choice, Sagan may have simply been looking for a smaller event in which to to test his mettle. Since he spends most of his time road racing, Sagan has no UCI points in mountain biking and would have had a last-row start at an XC World Cup—he would have had to ride through the chaotic back of the field for any kind of result. The Olympic start list will be much shorter, which means the race will be somewhat safer and more manageable.

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Sagan may also have wanted to take advantage of Alta's 6,000 feet of elevation for some last-minute altitude training, or a course with more climbing than Rio will have—3,600 feet compared to Rio’s 2,400.

Fifty kilometers is also an odd distance, falling somewhere between an extremely long cross-country race and a short marathon race, but perhaps it felt like a good transition after the Tour de France. Who knows? Maybe Sagan wanted to avoid letting his competitors scope out his skills, or maybe he just thought the event in Alta sounded like a good time.

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Regardless of his rationale, it's clear Sagan is no stranger to the dirt. After all, he's a former junior mountain bike world champion, and took silver at junior cyclocross world championships. He's also known for his distinctly un-road-like antics, including the occasional neglect of leg shaving. Rather than a departure, it's possible that for Sagan, Rio might just be a return to his roots.

While his odds are somewhat mixed, it'll definitely be worth tuning in to the 2016 Olympics race on Sunday, August 21, to see how the Slovakian road champion fares against the best mountain bikers in the world.

See Sagan's start at Pierre's Hole:

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