Five highlights from the year, presented in no particular order. They’re picked for great sport and the benefit of hindsight.
Now it’s Milan-Sanremo. It had action, inaction and gave us some clues about how Pogačar could eventually win it.
Sanremo is always a thrilling race, perhaps the only question is where on the course your heart rate picks up. Some will just tune in for the Cipressa, maybe even for the Poggio but here the thrill is the gradual rise in tension and that starts long before the three capi climbs. The earlier you tune in, the more finale delivers TV tachycardia.
This year’s edition was fast from the start, the peloton lined out by Alpecin’s human derny Silvan Dillier who set a pace far ahead of the race roadbook’s fastest schedule. The breakaway riders were part of this too, staying away until the Cipressa.
Just looking at the startlist that day suggested UAE had a plan for the climbs but they lacked a bodyguard rider to deliver them into place and once on the Poggio several riders were out of position. Only Isaac Del Toro was left to pace Tim Wellens and Tadej Pogačar. The Mexican impressively honed the peloton down to 40 riders.
Were Wellens or Pogačar going to move? No, or at least not now and once again the climb came and went without a move. Because of the lack of UAE riders there was a lull in pace on the balcony road section over to Costarainera as they needed another rider or two to sustain things. Early breakaway rider Davide Bais even relaunched, profiting from the relative truce.
Wellens lead out Pogačar on the Poggio. The attack was coming, even the spot was obvious, the brief ramp where Pogačar could make the most of his advantage uphill over others. Pogačar jumped and Van der Poel was with him right away, with Alberto Bettiol and Filippo Ganna right there and Mads Pedersen two bike lengths behind. Then Pogačar shut it down. As fast as he can climb, the Poggio is so quick that the others were just getting a free tow. Pogačar went again and others couldn’t or wouldn’t. He quickly got a gap. Van der Poel was caught in traffic had to go around others before sprinting across the gap.
This Pogačar-Van der Poel tandem didn’t work, or rather Van der Poel didn’t. A few more danger moves from Mohorič, Pidcock and Sobrero set the heart racing before Philipsen won the sprint.
Why the pick?
Sanremo is always a thrill but this was tense to the end and there’s an electric tension that no other races supply. Many a race can feel inevitable by the time the finish arrives, here the ending was impossible to predict until there was just second or two of racing left. Sure, sprint finishes have this uncertainty but they’re among sprinters only and the excitement isn’t as prolonged, this was high end racing from a wide cast of characters. The tactical finale just made it enticing and the kind of race that you need to rewind and review to appreciate it better.
With hindsight
Tadej Pogačar is rarely boring to watch, he doesn’t snipe his wins – see his 100km breakaway at the worlds. Yet this time he was undone. He can win cycling’s battles when it’s reduced to power but this episode showed team work from Van der Poel contributing to Pogačar’s undoing. It’s something rivals will be studying, at least for the spring classics. It’s also a case study in cycling’s rich tactics where the strongest rider – be it Pogačar or Van der Poel – doesn’t always win.
Sanremo is famously elusive, Peter Sagan seemed made for it but never finished better than second, and was fourth four times. Pogačar can try but even he may never do it. Yet this edition gave us clues on how he could win. UAE’s plan came undone in the streets of Cipressa, their riders were out of position going into the climb. This left Pogačar short of the several booster rockets he needed to launch. With more riders he could perhaps have gone on the Cipressa while colleagues marked, or more likely have made his move on the Poggio but from a smaller and more ragged group; if it came back to a group then there would be fewer sprinters to worry about too. Easy to type of course, but that’s what blogs are for and we can see the paths to victory here.
Finally there’s also a whimsical loss. Next year will see the first women’s Milan-Sanremo and this is great, let’s stress that. However it’ll be on the same Saturday and so the rhythm of the day will change. To make the point once more, the women’s version is overdue given we’ve got Liège, the Ronde and Roubaix. It’s just that day’s gradual build-up will now instead have a different feel as we tune in to see the women as well because both events are on the same day. One of the glories of the sport is that it’s Tolstoy rather than Tiktok, races take six hours rather than 15 seconds. So The feel of the day will be different, we’ll be multitasking and channel-hopping rather than trapped in the spell of one event. If only the Via Aurelia could be closed for two consecutive days, but alas.
Why am I not surprised to see a Tolstoy reference from Mr. Ring? As a fan of cycling and other long, meandering stories, I love it!
It’s alright to have the women race it. I won’t feel compelled to watch anyway. And I hope we are given the choice and can still watch (or keep the TV on in the background as I cook and eat my lunch, as I usually do) the guys coasting while the girls are finishing their race. Having said that, I think it’s generally better, in any category, to have the males race first.
I’m really curious to see how the women’s race will unfold. There are a few sprinters you can discount out of hand (Consonni, Kool) because they’re strictly flat sprinters who can’t climb. Then there’s the obvious contenders (Vos, Kopecky, Wiebes, Vollering), but who might come out of left field to win it? I’d nominate Cédrine Kerbaol in a Mohorič-esque descent attack. Maybe, though, we see different tactics being played because it’s the first edition of the race, and because the women’s races tend to surprise in ways the men’s don’t. As for the men’s edition, I’d really love to see Ganna win it, but I fear this may be the year we see an attack on the Cipressa. No points for guessing who attacks there.
They haven’t yet announced the length of the women’s race. How long will it have to be to make sure it’s not just a race for sprinters? Certainly, the mandatory 160km maximum won’t do that, but they do allow longer races – I can’t find anything recently longer than a 177km Tour de France Femmes stage in 2023. That wouldn’t seem enough either. I’d like to see it being at least 220km – otherwise, is it really Milan-Sanremo?
On a general note, I’ve been baffled for years that the UCI still gets away with the sexism of these maximum distances. Very few other sports mandate that women do so much less.
And I’d love to see Pog have a proper go at it from the Cipressa.
I’d like to see the women racing for a similar amount of time to the men. I wouldn’t expect them to race the same distance because they don’t ride as fast. But if the men can race for 6 hours then there’s no reason the women can’t or shouldn’t do the same. But perhaps they only cover 240km in that time, not 290km…
Isn’t there the reasoning that the mens races involve one, if not two ‘natural breaks’ by the side of the road, which are sadly a little harder to organise for the womens peloton.
…that said, there’s plenty of female pros who say they’d have no problem with riding longer races
That has been part of the UCI’s rationale. But not any more (and there are dedicated zones now at some races)
Same times seems a good way to do it.
It’s not like there are TdF crowds, so peeing shouldn’t be that much of an issue (sounds like an excuse from the UCI), especially as you can just have dedicated zones, as Inner Ring says.
I’m not sure it’s really an ‘excuse’ – although there are plenty of riders who are happy to, it’s a bit of a non-starter policy to tell women that if they want to pee they will have to do it in public whether they’re comfortable with it or not. Therefore the ‘dedicated zones’ sound like progress on this front.
With the lack of crowds, there would be plenty of opportunities to pee in many races. My wife pees outdoors all the time, even in parks in Glasgow. The cameras would be the main issue, and they just need to be told to sod off.
The women’s marathon is the same distance as the men’s not 2/3 of it. If it’s not the same course as the men’s it’s not Milan san remo
Completely off-topic, but re: those other sports:
Cross-country skiing is making the move to equal distances in the World Championships next year, but biathlon still sticks to the shorter distances for female athletes (which is a bit curious since the longest distance is 20 km / 15 km).
Skiing shortened the mens distances for the tit-tok gen, when they really shoud have gone longer given the increased speeds.
Skiing shortened the mens distances for the tik-tok gen. When they really shoud have gone longer given the increased speeds. Now the world cups are all sprinting.
Hey! That´s my inrng-name you´re using!
Anyway, the number one reason why the men´s distances were shortened – with the sole exception of the 50 km event, the “royal distance” – was to make them equal to the women´s distances which were lengthened.
But it´s true that the sprint races have replaced a number of distance races in the calendar – and that the “too complicated to follow by those with short attention spans or new to the sport” interval starts have largely been turned into mass starts (where the action often happens as late in the race as it does on sprint stages in road cycling).
Philipsen’s best win for me. Once I saw him on the back of the group it all made sense and watching the TV I felt more certainty about final metres. Felt for Matthews, so close this time.
I never feel sorry for Matthews. He could have been Gilbert if only he would work.
I agree. Matthews, and Greenedge for that matter, never seem to want to work. Always waiting for someone else to bring the move back etc. And then complaining to “Imps bro” that he did not help when he was on a different team. Maybe they lack the firepower in the team but it is frustrating to watch. Lets hope Steve Cummings instills a bit more attacking into the squad
They have never really had any depth. O’Connor plus Plapp plus Dunbar might give them a but more toughness but only time will tell. Dunbar’s win via a long sprint was an highlight of the year for me.
Like many of his biggest wins, Philipsen has a lot to thank MvdP for. Many riders would have worked with Pog and hoped to take him in the sprint. I seem to remember that MvdP said he was tired that day, which given his eventual finish might be true, but I think many riders in that situation would have ridden for themselves anyway.
Matthews is one of those riders who lives nearby and who locals on the Poggio can tell when he’s had a haircut because they’re so used to seeing him there.
Surely it’s because I’m a MvdP & Pogi fan, but I was left pretty much frustrated by the result, however strategically interesting it turned out to be. OTOH, MvdP was maybe totally spent as he defended afterwards, which would make his subsequent tactics quite good as such, but, on the other hand, I’d have preferred him to race more boldly, thinking about the more or less slim chance of winning himself, especially as he was wearing rainbow, rather than granting a highest-percentage victory chance for the team (plus helping Philipsen to keep him happy for the cobbles). I guess that’s what makes him a great professional and team player. That said, it was a great example of chess on wheels and the “cerebral” aspects of cycling still amidst anoxic fog, with the added element so typical of this race that you must take your decisions in fractions of a second after those long hours of waiting (and ruminating, no doubt).
I was among those unhappy with the course and disapppointed by Vegni freezing it as it is some seasons ago, but I must acknowledge I was wrong, as most of the last 8 editions have been actually great or very good (Stuyven’s maybe the less exciting one) despite a 3-4 years mediocre spell around the middle of the 10s. And the race then already came from a full decade of great editions (thanks to Le Manie, sometimes, all must be said).
With all its flaws, together with Paris-Roubaix it’s probably the most steady race in producing consistently great editions across the last quarter of a century. Obviously each Roubaix tends to grant 2 to 6 hours of excitement whereas la Classicissima provides really 2 to 60 minutes…
And, to avoid any misunderstanding, it must also be said that few or no Sanremo (or Roubaix, even!) can reach the peaks of cycling beauty which can be achieved at the Ronde. The Ronde is just less consistent, with many a “meh” edition mixed with the shockingly good ones.
The Ronde is glorious in many ways but recent editions have lacked suspense, the best rider won and the result was there to be seen from a long way away. But that’s the problem with picking highlights, you have to leave otherwise great events off the list (and yes, the Ronde isn’t next or the final pick).
Lots of hindsight re: Ronde’s recent results (I wasn’t speaking of the 2024 edition, obviously). Check your own previews about Pogi winning 2023. And he was probably the strongest in 2022, surprisingly enough, but he didn’t win. Both were huge races with loads of action from many characters. 2021 and 2020 were more of a duel, but what a duel in 2020… and are you so sure everybody would go with MvdP in that sprint? 2021 was quite a surprise, no doubt. 2019 and 2018 weren’t great, although only 2018 responds to your above definition, as 2016 (which I loved all the same), whereas 2017 was another huge race very far from your above description. Even including 2015, and despite the lacklustre editions, few races if any score that high in the last decade (Roubaix wasn’t potentially at its finest in several editions, say 2014, 2015, 2017, 2022, 2023, 2024…)
‘This Pogačar-Van der Poel tandem didn’t work, or rather Van der Poel didn’t.’
Syllepsis in contemporary writing is a rare treat indeed.
I hope the last two picks include the final stage of the women’s Tour de France which had everything. SD Worx (with the notable exception of Niamh Fisher Black) trying to out-Movistar Movistar, a wait in the false flat before the Alpe, suspense right up to the end as any one of 3 riders could have won, and bodies all over the mountain.
And why not the Giro Donne’s as well? 🙂
The way Rooijakkers rode that stage was so fun to watch. She knew how she could possibly win, and tortured Vollering to try to make it happen. It was one of those classic cycling moments where the strongest rider is forced to work for someone else, and it probably was the reason Kasia was able to save her race.
@The Other Craig, Rooijakkers played the Rui Costa role to perfection.
Good point, whether it’s a compliment or insult! I always find it funny when those tactics are described as “un-sporting,” as if she should have said “Sure Demi, let’s work together so you can blow my doors off for the win in the end!” Better to risk losing 2nd for a more realistic chance at 1st.
Of major races, MSR must have surely the greatest diversity of contenders? Going into that final kilometre, you had the reigning world champions on the road, gravel, cyclo-cross, mountain bike and individual pursuit all there. A Tour de France Green Jersey alongside an Alpe d’Huez stage winner … What other major race could see that diversity all with a legitimate shot at final victory coming in to the final straight?