{"id":22073,"date":"2013-08-22T13:41:55","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T11:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/rodriguez-has-bigger-things-in-mind-for-sagan\/"},"modified":"2013-08-22T13:41:55","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T11:41:55","slug":"rodriguez-has-bigger-things-in-mind-for-sagan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rodriguez-has-bigger-things-in-mind-for-sagan\/","title":{"rendered":"Rodriguez has bigger things in mind for Sagan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=14296\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14296\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14296\" alt=\"Freddie Rodriguez (Jelly Belly) shows off his new road national champ kit. Photo: Cycling News\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/2a40d_13cccstge302_220.jpg\" width=\"220\" height=\"330\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Freddie Rodriguez (Jelly Belly) shows off his new road national champ kit. Photo: Cycling News<\/p>\n<p>Four-time and current US professional road race champion Freddie Rodriguez got a bit of a shock yesterday as he rolled from the stage 2 finish at the USA Pro Challenge toward his Jelly Belly team bus.<\/p>\n<p>On the way to the parking lot he passed by the podium ceremony for the stage and heard the announcers call out the name of Cannondale\u2019s 23-year-old super star, Peter Sagan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDid Sagan get third,\u201d he asked a reporter. \u201cWow!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sagan is not unlike a younger Rodriguez, who was known either as sprinter who could climb or as a climber who could sprint. <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/sagan-wins-stage-three-of-the-2013-usa-pro-challenge\/\" target=\"_blank\">The 39-year-old former WorldTour rider said he sees potential for Sagan to be a GC threat in more races<\/a> if he could cut a little weight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe sprints well because he\u2019s a little bit bigger right now,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean if you look at him, he\u2019s chunky, but I bet if he got really lean and lost a little bit of muscle he\u2019d be a GC contender.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat was it, two years ago that he got top 10 at the Tour of California? So he\u2019s a versatile rider. I bet if he lost some weight he\u2019d be a GC contender. That\u2019s my feel. He\u2019s that good of a rider.\u201d \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cycling News<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more USA Pro Challenge news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/usa-pro-challenge\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/910bd_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Freddie Rodriguez (Jelly Belly) shows off his new road national champ kit. Photo: Cycling News Four-time and current US professional road race champion Freddie Rodriguez got a bit of a shock yesterday as he rolled from the stage 2 finish at the USA Pro Challenge toward his Jelly Belly team bus. On the way to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-22073","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}