Brace for impact
The first time many people can remember seeing the ‘super-tuck’ position was at the World Championships in Florence in 2013. The 19-year-old Slovenian, Matej Mohori?, announced himself not only by winning the U23 road race one year after winning the junior title, but also by contorting his body on descents in a way most had never seen.
While previous extreme descending positions had seen riders place their hands in the centre of the bars and their nose almost on the stem, or slide off the back of the saddle and hover over the rear wheel – think Marco Pantanti in the 1990s – Mohori? went the other way. Sliding forward to sit on the top tube, and with his hands gripping the tops of the handlebars and his elbows bent like a frog’s legs, he pedalled like fury to the under-23 title.
It wasn’t pretty. It looked precarious and unstable with the rider’s weight thrown so far forward, but it caught on, albeit not immediately. It wasn’t until three years later, when Chris Froome attacked on Stage 8 of the 2016 Tour de France by going clear over the summit of the Peyresourde and then descending in the Mohori? style, that the cycling world really sat up and took notice.
