The national Slovenian road race champion in June, `cross national champion in July, Luka Mezgec has completed a hat-trick of titles in 2017 by taking out the `cross title The versatile Orica-Scott rider also won a stage of the Tour of Slovenia and wore the race leader`s jersey for a day in a memorable quartet of home victories for 2017. Signed to Orica-Scott to bolster its lead-out train from 2016, the 29-year-old enjoyed his most successful season since 2014 on the road, also claiming the Veenendaal Veenendaal Classic. While the road remains Mezgec`s primary focus, he explained that once he claimed the mountain bike national title, he set his off-season sights on the `hat-trick`.ADVERTISEMENT `It was really special to take the MTB title again this year and then I knew I had to have a go at the cyclo-cross title also,` Mezgec said. `There aren`t really any Slovenian specialists in cyclo-cross which made it a unique opportunity for me to win three national titles in one year.` Mezgec added that upon winning his first road title, after two silver medals, his thoughts turned to another mountain bike title having started his cycling career racing off-road and enjoyed success before his full-time switch. `When I won the road title, I thought it was once in a life time chance to win both events (road and mountain bike championships) in the same year,` Mezgec said. `I had a break before the mountain bike event so it wasn´t actually ideal preparation but I was quite confident I could do a good result so I decided to race it. I always ride MTB in the off-season and I have raced a lot before.
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