Interview Eugenia Bujak

Champion of Poland, champion of Slovenia and in front during the last worldchampionships. Eugenia Bujak doens't only collect national jerseys. She also won classics. In 2016, she was the best rider in Plouay. At 31 years old, she's in the best years of her career. Let's look back together with her on her carreer so far and get to know her and her story.

 

 

Born in Lithuania, a former Polish champion and currently representing Slovenia. Would you describe yourself as a cycling nomad?

 

Yes I was born in Lithuania but I’m Polish and I’m still living in Poland. I was proud to represent Poland but some things happened. This is the reason why I decided to not represent Poland anymore. Slovenia in the last 7 years was like a second home for me. After a very difficult period, Slovenia helped me stand up and continue my cycling career. I’m very grateful for it. I found back my happiness! There are so many people that help me but a special thanks to Gorazd Penko, Maja Oven and my husband Miłosz.

 

You've been succesful on both the road as on the track. What do you like the most?

For the track racing I went just to find another possibility to improve. Because In that moment it was very difficult to find some good team being without results and no international racing. Beginning was hard, later I started to like track but I was always more road cyclist. So I decided to focus just on the road. 

 

You're a decent time trialist on the international level. How often do you train on your time trial bike?

Well, I wish to have one year to focus just on time trial. I can say that I’m almost not training for TT. I’m on the TT bike 15x per all year. I do sometimes a few trainings before some important race. This year I was training nothing for it. 

 

Slovenia had both the winner and the runner-up in the most recent Tour de France. Did you follow the race and were you proud about the result? 

 Yes I followed the race and I was proud of our guys ! They both deserve to win! 

 

You're in the middle of your carreer right now. What were your best memories and what are your goals for the coming years?  

I had a lot of beautiful memories, from the little results in national races when my coach was my husband Milosz to the international with a my first UCI team BTC City Ljubljana. For sure a very special memory was my victory in WWT race in Plouay. I achieved it after a very difficult time in my cycling career. To become European Track Champion was also a big result for me! 

 

You joined the breakaway on the worldchampion after a big solo chase and you even took iniative right after it. How did you experience the race? 

I knew that the race is too hard for me, those climbs were simply just too steep for me. I had in the plan to go in the break away but when it went I wasn’t in the right position in the group to join it. I was trying to join the break away earlier but the peloton didn’t let me. I expected the race to be very hard in the last two laps, so I wanted to go away before the favorites would attack. This is the reason of my long attack to join the break away and to be able to climb on my own tempo. 

 

Do you prefer stage races or one day races? 

One day race 

 

How did you start in cycling? 

Well, I didn’t have a bike when I was little. We didn’t have money for it. I went to a cycling club just because I wanted to join my friends from the village and have a fun together.

 

Thanks for the interview, Eugenia!