For the first time since 1996 the winning move was launched on the Cipressa. This set up a frantic thirty minutes of action where Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu Van der Poel traded attacks and Filippo Ganna chased them all the way to the line.
“È grigia la strada ed è grigia la luce” as Paolo Conte sang, the road was grey and the light was grey as the peloton rolled out of Pavia looking like Lombardia’s biggest group ride with riders in mis-matched rain gear. Even Tadej Pogačar had black shorts and a black rain jacket.
Soon the day’s breakaway was formed as two groups coalesced, complete with two Bardiani and two Solution Tech riders and then three as Kristian Sbaragli bridged across to make eight riders away for the day. Just like last year Silvan Dillier lead the chase for Alpecin-Deceuninck and seemed to be on the front for hours on end.
The Cipressa saw the last of the breakaway riders in Martin Marcellusi caught right at the start, the road was clear. But UAE were not visible, in fact they seemed more out of place than last year. Filippo Ganna and Mathieu van der Poel had the best seats, each with a team mate ahead of them as Tim Wellens barged past to set the pace. But Tadej Pogačar – by now in white – and his rainbow jersey was way back. Pogačar began moving up, 20th wheel, 15th wheel, going in the wind to overtake others was almost an attack in itself. Wellens piled on the pace, his whole body straining as he aimed for a personal finish line two kilometres into the climb. As he pulled over, Jhonathan Narvaez punched through to the front with Pogačar on his wheel. Narvaez was gasping for air like a fish out of water and then stood on the pedals for one final burst.
Pogačar launched, the move that seemed audacious for Playstation cycling or bloggers to write about was on. Ganna, Van der Poel and Romain Grégoire followed as a gap opened up on the rest. Soon Grégoire was in a world of pain, head tilted sideways and he fell off the slipstream to leave a trio of Pogačar, Van der Poel and Ganna. Pogačar kicked again and Ganna was distanced but the Italian kept the two in range and got across as the slope eased. Van der Poel started to work on the front. The selection was made and as they passed the church in Cipressa stopwatches recorded the first time under nine minutes.
The trio pulled out a minute’s lead on a chase group left with few workers to chase. Soon the peloton saw the leaders’ three team cars pass, a moral-sapping time check. Up front this was poker time: Pogačar risked being out-sprinted in Sanremo; the other two risked being ejected on the Poggio but they seemed to cooperate. Until the Poggio, when Pogačar darted to the inside of the first bend and attacked, distancing Ganna. You could hear disc brakes squealing as they climbed through the corners at speed. Pogačar kept looking at Van der Poel but the Dutchman seemed to avoid eye contact and just as Ganna was about to get back on Pogačar kicked again. Van der Poel matched him but had to sit down after 15 pedal strokes and suddenly a gap opened. But Pogačar too had to sit down as another bend came up and as he dabbed the brakes Van der Poel was back. Pogačar surged again after the corner but this time he was the first to sit down. Van der Poel came through as Ganna had the pair in range again. So Pogačar jumped again but this time only ten pedal strokes out of the saddle, Van der Poel’s grey kit making him look like a long shadow that followed Pogačar. The world champion tried once again, this time his face a rare rictus of agony but by now he was starting to spin a lower gear while Van der Poel looked more potent. Indeed Van der Poel attacked and got a gap he looked back to find Pogačar two bike lengths back and eased off. At the top of the Poggio the TV caption said Ganna was 19 seconds behind but the stopwatch said eight and closing.
Into Sanremo and the dawning realisation that somebody had to win the race, like the feeling of awakening while still in a dream, as ahead a painted line marked the end of the trance. But the thrill only grew as Ganna was chasing like a homing missile and caught the pair with 750 metres to go. As the trio tried to get the measure of each other Van der Poel launched with 250m to go and took a few metres. A stampeding Ganna began to close the gap but it was over and Van der Poel sat up to celebrate.
The Verdict
Van der Poel wins, the predicted result. Pogačar attacked on the Cipressa, a predicted scenario too. Yet this was the script being rewritten, the consensus shattered. Finally an attack on the Cipressa and a decisive one too. This set up a delirious thirty minutes of sport where three riders wrote the rest of the peloton out of the story. Each would have made a worthy winner, their triumph ennobled who stood next to them on the podium. Pick among the trio and the outcome would surely be the most thrilling edition of the race this century.
As Van der Poel joins the rare club of double victors, he can look back at the perfect race. After a week of restraint in Tirreno-Adriatico, he managed his efforts just right on the day. In place for the Cipressa, he was just able to mark Pogačar’s every move and even put in his own attack on the Poggio which seemed telling, as if he doubted his own sprint. Ganna rode to his best too, gravity denied him from matching Pogačar on the Cipressa and Poggio but his indefatigable pursuit had RAI TV’s commentators in rapture and spurred the other two on to compounded the suspense.
Lastly, for Pogačar third place again, and his fourth top-five. There could be popularity in losing after the certainty of Strade Bianche, this time he was the catalyst of the race, but beaten. After today he can see a path to victory and it might be third time lucky for UAE coming into the Cipressa as a unit next year. But who knows if a tailwind will help prise the race apart because even Pogačar can’t make the weather.
What a race. One of the greatest I’ve ever seen. Three great champions at the top of their game, each using their own different skills to hurt the other or stay in the fight.
It was like Ali fighting Sugar Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson at the same time. What a spectacle.
Echoing your line about dream and wake, let me quote what a user wrote on the Cicloweb forum, “I must be dead and watching the Sanremo I always had dreamt of”.
Thanks to all the athletes.
I have watched MSR for more years than I care to remember. This was by far the most exciting, dramatic final ever, with three deserving competitors. And the result unknown until the final meters.
Roll on the rest of the Spring classics!
Any indication the crash Pog had at SB affected him today?
None whatsoever. He was beaten on the day by an incredible classics racer on perhaps one of his best ever rides.
Likewise, in fact he looked at ease on the Cipressa descent and even took one corner quicker than Van der Poel at the start that had Ganna almost bouncing on the barrier.
“as the peloton rolled out of Pavia looking like Lombardia’s biggest group ride with riders in mis-matched rain gear” is a great line in a great account of a great race. Many thanks for taking the time to examine, preview and summarise it over the last week.
Oh, Ganna. That dogged perseverance. As he came looming back into the shot, the long lens making him appear closer than he really was? No! He was gaining.
I loved it.
One of the best final 30 minutes of a race I’ve seen. At about 3pm, I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy TNT sport £18 a month (tough for a Yorkshireman) I just felt this MSR was going to be special – And I wanted to see if Pogacar could attack on the Cipressa and make it stick. It was procycling at its best. As inrng says, they all would have been deserving winners. What a podium. If there was a combativity award for making the race special, Pogacar would be in a league of his own.
I’m sure I’ve seen some editions of MSR where no-one ever attacked on the uphills. Enjoy this era whilst it lasts.
It’s been a cliche here but today was one of those days where you’d buy the DVD highlights, and a DVD player to go with it, it was that good. We’ll see what the season brings but an obvious contender for a highlight of the season given this was the best edition of one of the best races in a long time. Let’s hope April, May, June and July’s subscription’s are equally worthy of the subscription premium.
Wanted Tadej to win, but giving away 3 or 4 metres to start the final sprint was never going to cut it! ( easier said that done I know)
It was like he was hanging back to be able to respond but while he’s very good in a sprint, Van der Poel is just better and Ganna too is a powerhouse. It didn’t go in the piece above but this time last year you could see Pogacar was sore about finishing third (I seem to remember he was asked “5th, 4th and now 3rd, you’re getting closer” and he was wincing) but this time if the result was the same he seemed more content with the outcome.
Not sure of that. He climbed the wrong step of the podium and went away at the wrong moment, too, both times he had to be shepherded by, well, Nibali I think at least once. He looked ruminative with a grumbling sound of far thunders in his mind.
I guess he was thinking about how to achieve a Ronde-Roubaix double within the next four weeks
^___^
What an incredible race! I’m still feeling breathless a few hours later!
A small correction – it was a Red Bull Bora rider that sat up behind Gregoire to open the gap on the Cipressa; Pidcock was on the wheel of the Cofidis rider that crashed on the entry to the climb, and was presumably held up as was nowhere to be seen thereafter.
I thought it was Pidcock but hard to tell in the moment, reviewing the video and it was a Red Bull helmet… but a Red Bull rider, either Van Gils or Adria by deduction but hard to tell so will fix the text above.
The moment the race was lost… Pog being too far back on the Cipressa. Having to make up that amount of positions before attacking meant he wasn’t able to truly take advantage of the work of his team mates.
It looks like the Cipressa is the key for him though.
I don’t think the race was lost there because MvdP was comfortably sitting in the Pog’s wheel on the Cipressa. Even with perfect positioning from the start of the climb he was never going to drop MvdP there. MvdP also said later in an interview that he was feeling very strong on the Cipressa. On the Poggio he appeared closer to dropping the wheel a few times.
I agree with the first part. MvdP covered his first attack with ease so I am not sure why Pogacar persisted. It was as though there was no plan B.
Perhaps he needs a dropper seat!
I think that plan A was never dropping anyone else on Cipressa but just shredding the group into thin pieces and then work on that later with/against whomever was on the front.
On the Cipressa and Poggio uphill drag races, it seemed(?) Pogacar was on the front more often than not, while MVDP was content to suck wheel. At the speed they climb, aerodynamic drag is non-negligible. Tactically, was that really the best option for Pogacar?
I was also expecting Isaac del Toro to do a punishing pull & leadout on the Cipressa, but he seemed invisible. I was only able to watch last 30 kms of race — did something happen to del Toro?
Del Toro was just out of position on the approach. Every team is fighting to drop their leader into position here so it’s a lot to as from a 21 year old but it was notable that UAE didn’t start the Cipressa as they’d have liked. This year they came with a more muscular team than last year, next year they might bring someone like Rune Herregodts along too who is bigger, or hire someone known as a lead-out who nobody else wants to rub shoulders with because nine times out of ten they’ll come off worse. This is partly why the likes of Grégoire got a head start thanks to Askey’s delivery.
I think TP needed 3 very strong riders who know how to be in position before the Cipressa not just Wellens, and better than out of place Navarro. Del Toro kinda sucked last year and this year is no different.
Maybe bring a big engine to string out the peloton many kilometers before the Cipressa.
Your write-up is infinitely worthy of this great race. Thank you.
Watching RAI on a VPN, it was almost impossible not to share the commentators’ enthusiasm for Pippo Ganna. Che grinta! I really hoped he had a few more watts in reserve.
Was anyone else a bit surprised that the UAE support on the Cipressa didn’t last longer? Easy to say, when these near-superhumans are on the rivet, but I expected Pogi to be given a bit more of a launchpad. A lack of organisation, perhaps.
However, the destruction that was wrought on the peloton shows why this aggressive strategy should be used more often. The group of chasers were so strewn back down the road that they took a long time to come back together in sufficient numbers to threaten to reduce the time gap. Perhaps in future years, more than one team might fancy this nuclear option.
Finally, a nitpick. Was the winning move really launched then, considering the launcher didn’t end up winning. Personally, I feel next year’s ‘winning move’ graphic will say “2025 – 0 kms”
Thanks for drawing attention to the fact that Tadej must have stopped for a full kit change. From black shorts to white. Well worth it, everyone knows white shorts are faster 🙂
I’ve just skipped through the race again on TNT and Tadej appears in white shorts with 118km to go. There are loads of riders coming back at this stage so maybe there really was a mass kit stop.
Felt unlucky for Ganna who closed the gap into San Remo at just the wrong moment going into the corners which wiped any chance of going straight over the top with a speed advantage which might just have seen him home. We’ll never know. Well, at least not until next year; it’s result which ensures both Ganna and Pogacar will continue to return. If one or other had won perhaps they’d have looked elsewhere in future years.
And a chapeau to Fred Wright for cracking the top 10. We have a soft spot for him in our household. Not among the true elite of the sport but often there or thereabouts and seems a genuine guy too. Hope he can crack a classics podium or that elusive GT stage.
I still haven’t forgiven Wright for taking Roglič out of the -22 Veulta, just as Roglič had shown great signs of mounting a come back and fight it out with Evenepoel in a last week that suddenly lost all suspens. I know Roglič was veering to the right, in fatigue, but Fred Wright had room to change his course slightly and pass Roglič on his right. Instead he rode straight into Roglič’s handlebar and took him out, as well as taking himself out of the sprint.
And laughing about it in the post stage interview was deplorably respectless towards everybody who were deprived of a promising week of high suspens racing.
Interesting that you saw it that way as I saw that incident very differently. Looked to me like Wright was clearly on the wheel and Roglič tried to force Wright out of the way so he could get onto it and have a better chance in the sprint. Seemed to me like it was totally Roglič’s fault.
It was 100% Rog fault but Visma has a good PR and they decided tp blame the other rider. They did the same 2023 Vuelta pretending that Rog was the only one that attacked the teammates, when Ving. Was the first and did also multiple times, but one stayed on the team and other not. But still several comments believe Visma over their eyes
Probably not the most significant part of the day but can anyone shed any light on the logistics of Pog changing his shorts mid race? The whole thought of having to get out of your rain gear mid race is bad enough…
Oh thanks for asking this!! I am equally curious. I don’t actually understand when , how often, and for how long pelotons allow riders to take breaks to do things like this. Even pee breaks – how long are they given?
Thanks to OP for asking!
Listening to the Italian TV, the moto reporter said a lot of riders stopped around Genoa after the Turchino descent to get changed but not much detail on all this, it was also around the time the women’s race was finishing so the focus was on the sprint in Sanremo at the time. But this point the race was in a steady phase, there’s time to slow or even stop and then get back as the breakaway and Dillier were matching each other.
I know it’s only rankings based off of one person’s metrics, so I truly do not put much importance on it but it’s still a nag: ProCyclingStats and CyclingRankings has MVDP at 82 and 160 all time, respectively.
He’s not done with his career, I get it as well, but that is an absolutely absurd ranking even at this point in his career with 7 monuments to his name. PCS has GVA and Alexander Kristoff ahead of MVDP and I won’t even waste my time mentioning who in CyclingRanking. Just absurd.
Van der Poel is very focused on a few races on the road in the spring; at the same time he’s only won one Tour de France and one Giro d’Italia stage when he could have more, and their points jerseys too.
That’s the big limitation of rankings of any sort. Elsewhere on this blog I’ve been commenting lenghty on that.
I like the cold statistics of PCS, although it still requires some subjective scoring of races, especially across eras. As others have mentioned, that ranking obviously rewards consistency as well as excellence, and can only be properly assessed at the end of a career. GVA seems an odd one to pick on, given the classics, semi-classics, Olympics, and grand tour stages he’s won, while Kristoff is a remarkable athlete – think he’s won at least once (and sometimes many more times) every year since 2011. IMO, the two most remarkable stats seem to be the relative lack of grand tour stages won by MVDP (in part due to his deluxe leadout role in recent years), and the impressive ranking of Demare!
I guess that the whole point was not that Kristoff or GVA were overestimated as such, in general terms, but that according to a meaningful human specific evaluation, they should sit quite clearly well below MvdP, as «similar» athletes in a «similar» age and yet…
We must also admit that this comparison is an extreme case which highlights precisely some of the potential failure zones of the ranking system.
The best MSR I have ever seen (and I was already watching the race at the times of Colombo…).
Van der Poel is a real master. It is this kind of rider who when in position to win a big race, then he will. No tactical blunders + the audacity to take the right risks at the right time. The counter on the Poggio or how he launched the sprint so far. Just wonderful.
Many kudos for the Pog too who dares to attack on the Cipressa, but with his passive it is barely a surprise now. And I also loved how Ganna never gave up and paced himself to come back time and again.
Phenomenal race, of course. Some random thoughts:
it might be 50 years until anyone rides up the Cipressa that fast
If del Toro, Narvaez and Wellens had all been at the front of the race at the start of the Cipressa, to soften the field up even more, might that have made a difference in terms of Pogacar’s chances of dropping van der Poel? Probably not, but you never know
van der Poel and Ganna are on unbelievable form at the moment. If Pogacar catches the former, in particular, on an off day, he can surely win
given the climbing, endurance and sprinting power that Ganna showed, why doesn’t he win far more races – like a Pedersen?
does Pogacar overrate his sprint a bit? I never thought he was going to beat van der Poel
bring on RvV (and maybe even Roubaix)!
Ganna has been working on several complex projects for years.
You don’t become absolute recordman both on the hour and on the 4 kms just giving it a random try. Both specialties slightly hinder other skills, be it only (and it’s not just that) for the cost opportunity of taking away working time and racing practice.
Then he had both the 2023 “Superworlds” and the 2024 Olympics in sight, with the intention of competing both on track (pursuit, i.e., short distance) and ITT. And that was complicated enough, indeed.
In Italy there’s like two trends among fans, those who think that the best he could do was precisely to achieve the most where he’s the perfect athlete, adding the road as an interdisciplinary plus, and those who think that the road matters the most he should have started well before to race more Classics, even minor ones, and much less stage racing mainly on domestic duties just to compete in the odd ITT here and there.
I’m more on the former side, even if I’d have loved to see him race way more Classics. However, Mads isn’t much younger than him (six month or so) and the number of *road* victories isn’t that different, 49 against 34.
Anyway, Ganna only developed his sprint in very recent years, as Cancellara did in the final part of his career, which adds up to your winning options but doesn’t make you a frequent sprint winner. Yet, Filippo’s got potentially some further 5-6 seasons to hone his one-day skills… if he finds motivation, because part of the story is that, for a series of reasons, he doesn’t really like that style of racing most of the times.
Great comment. I couldn’t watch live, or full highlights (won’t pay for TNT), and didn’t want any spoilers. Ended up on a TNT highlight video that started on the Poggio descent. I was SCREAMING for Ganna to catch them. It’s a shame he did so just before the final corners… in hindsight, perhaps he shouldve held off slightly until then final straight, then tried to attack at full speed.
I really hope he wins a big classic soon
A great race. Pogacar is a fantastic watch when trying to make the most of the fairly limited geography on offer in this race. He poured everything into it, he looked gassed by the top of the Poggio. Van der Poel looked frighteningly good, to the point where it was hard not to think any classic this spring without Pogacar will probably be a walkover. I think Ganna and Pogacar both lost it at the moment the speed was knocked off in the final few hundred metres. Nobody can beat Van der Poel in an explosion from low speed.
Were Lidl-Trek caught in the tangle at the bottom of the Cipressa or were they just beaten by the pace? They were all over the front on the Capi towards the Cipressa, and then weren’t seen again.
Well, as lucky American, I picked a great day to stay in Europe an extra one. Flew from AMS to NCE and drove to see the race. Stowed the bags and walked up to the tents. Shook hands with Nibali (!) and watched the race with so many great fans, wondering if Inrng was in our presence.
Met another fan and we stayed until after the interviews and podia. The trio came down and I yelled to a very visibly dejected Tadej that he will “kill them in Roubaix”. He looked at me in smiled so I’ll take that as a schedule change!
What a day, what a race, what a winner, what a sport. Just wow.
It’s great that our sport has a champion who is actually a good guy.
A story I heard in Australia during the summer was that during the last few years while his girlfriend Urška Žigart was riding for Liv-Jayco, he would greet all of the riders and staff (and introduce himself to those he hadn’t met before) any time he visited a race and would send them messages following victories.
You don’t mention it, but I think a motorbike was crucial in slowing Pogi at the exit of a corner up the Poggio, just when he was distancing Mathieu.
I did see that, but didn’t see your post before adding my own comment about it 😉
The 2012 winner Simon Gerrans was commentating on the race and certainly noticed it live.
I saw it but not sure if Pogačar had to brake after corner, or the opposite as he has a slipstream all of a sudden? For the “How to win Milan-Sanremo” post earlier this week I went back to look at previous Cipressa attacks and, not the first to mention this, it was like a motorbike rally with some cyclists in between. Things are much better regulated now but there’s a gain still to be had.
I wonder whether the result could have been different had Pogačar not been blocked by the motos on the exit of the tight hairpin when he had a gap over WVA?
I don’t think it would have made a difference – the hairpin took them from a tailwind (which is probably what helped Pogacar open up a small gap) to a headwind (which would favour mvdp in closing it up).
A vintage edition. In the last “few” years I would only see 2017 edition coming close, with Kwiato, Sagan and Alaphilippe taking it to the line.
I was rooting for Ganna, though he was the least likely to take the win. Must be really something for an Italian to win this race.
On a side note – what’s going on with Eurosport UK? I was usually switching to English commentary because I found them more competent than Polish but this year the English commentators sounded like taken from some 1.1 race, blunt and dull until the final.
Seems to me so whole Pogacar has to make the whole race harder for everyone else – is an attack by a proxy teammate or two realistic as they approach the coast. Leave the other teams with knackered riders? 🤷♂️
But yesterday a great example of avoiding the ‘madness is to keep doing the same thing and expect different’ – Pogacar clearly not mad and he and his team inventive at least.
So want Ganna to win this thing too!!
What a trio too – all seem proper gents and really enjoyed all the post interviews and thought UAE team manager axcellent too 👍👍