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At the Tour de France in 2016 in Bern, Switzerland, I had beaten Kristoff by the width of a tire, purely because I’d managed to “throw” my bike at the line at the right moment while he was still concentrating on sprinting. Remembering Switzerland, with all my might I thrust my arms forward, my backside hung out behind the saddle. My legs were straight, my arms were straight, Kristoff was a mirror image on my left.

I waited beyond the finish line, gulping in lungfulls of air and searching for any sign of a result. Had I given enough? Had I left it too late? Every second felt impossibly drawn out as I frantically looked around for any indication of a decision. Finally the finish-line photo came through, and it was clear: His front wheel was a sliver of racing rubber short of mine as we hit the line.

A huge swelling of Slovak fans burst the security line and rushed toward me, screaming, hugging, cheering. They were so thrilled for me and I was for them. We’d achieved the impossible . . . me, Juraj, my national teammates, these incredible fans, everyone back home. World champion three times in a row. One set of a UCI rainbow jersey and gold medal in the Americas, one in the Middle East, one in Scandinavia. Nobody had ever done those things before. And here was a supposedly crazy, supposedly feral kid from an ice-hockey-playing country that had only been independent of its bigger neighbors for 25 years. How the hell did that happen?