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There are about 5 million of us Slovaks, which puts us in the same ballpark as Norway, Finland, and Ireland by population—yes, I can use Google and Wikipedia, thank you—but we’re short on national heroes whether in history, art, or sport, so it’s a very cool thing for us to have a world champion in anything. I do feel a certain mixture of pressure and pride. You can’t avoid it, not when everybody in the street wants to shake your hand or take a selfie with you, and I’m not going to be the miser who denies them. I’d want one. And as there’s only 5 million of us, I’m working my way through everyone who wants one quite systematically. It’s not so much that I’m super famous or anything like that, but more to do with us not having too many famous people, if you see what I mean. We don’t, as a rule, go in for celebrity culture much in Slovakia. It’s not like you get people throwing themselves at your feet or silly stuff like that; we’re all just people getting on with our lives.

Would I be the rider I am today if I hadn’t grown up in Slovakia? That’s a really interesting question. I’m always being asked about my antics on a bike. I mean, the way I ride my bike and do tricks, wheelies, stunts, avoid crashes, that sort of thing. In fact, I’m usually being told, “Peto, no wonder you can do wheelies; it’s because you used to do BMX. Hey Peter, you can park your bike in a roof rack on top of a car because you were a mountain biker.”