How Milan-San Remo Was Won and/or Lost
The season's first monument, as ever, came down to its final hill.
Twelve riders came to the finish line of Milan-San Remo together, which should tell you a lot right away about how the race unfolded. In my race preview on Friday, I outlined several different courses the race could take, resulting in a number of different winners…and just about all of them happened.
There was indeed a doomed attack on the Cipressa—the Italian rider Davide Bais spent 250 kilometers in the break, got caught, and gave it another shot, staying away until just before the peloton hit the Poggio. There was a fierce attack on the final climb, some hesitation, and a climactic final sprint.
If you’re reading this, you almost certainly cared enough about the race to either watch it live or catch up on the highlights later. Even if not, you might recognize the rider in the lead image, and correctly deduce that he finished first. Nevertheless, I’ll list the 12 riders in the lead group alphabetically, rather than in their order of finish, as a narrative conceit. I hope you’ll indulge me and play along.
Julian Alaphilippe, France, Soudal-Quick Step
Alberto Bettiol, Italy, EF Education-Easy Post
Michael Matthews, Australia, Jayco-Alula
Matej Mohorič, Slovenia, Bahrain-Victorious
Mads Pedersen, Denmark, Lidl-Trek
Jasper Philipsen, Belgium, Alpecin-Deceuninck
Tom Pidcock, United Kingdom, Ineos Grenadiers
Tadej Pogačar, Slovenia, UAE Team Emirates
Jasper Stuyven, Belgium, Lidl-Trek
Matteo Sobrero, Italy, Bora-Hansgrohe
Matheiu van der Poel, Netherlands, Alpecin-Deceuninck
Maxim Van Gils, Belgium, Lotto-Dstny
Eleven of these riders lost this race. I want to take the last 10 kilometers—a little over 11 minutes—and find the point where that happened for each rider.
With 10 kilometers left, Groupama-FDJ was on the front of the peloton, trying to keep their sprinter, the 21-year-old New Zealander Laurence Pithie, near the front of the peloton. But right as the lead group hit the bottom of the Poggio, the pace went slack. Riders were freewheeling as they jockeyed for position, even moving up in position with relative ease.
Tudor Pro Cycling, riding in support of Matteo Trentin, got to the front right as the roads narrowed at the bottom of the hill with about 9.2 kilometers left. Marius Mayrhofer set a pace that was fast enough to stretch out the peloton and drop some stragglers, but not enough to put the contenders into difficulty. Pogačar, who’d been caught a couple dozen riders back, managed to slide up to the front with a teammate in tow, and catch Trentin’s wheel.
Ineos Grenadiers pulled up alongside, Michał Kwiatkowski dragging Filippo Ganna to the front of the peloton, with Pidcock, Fred Wright and Jhonatan Narváez close by. Pogačar’s teammate, Tim Wellens, got to the front and pegged the tempo coming out of the various hairpin turns over the next kilometer.
I thought about eliminating Pogačar with about 8 kilometers to go, after he and Wellens had been boxed in by a combination of FDJ, Tudor and Ineos. Pogačar is a good sprinter for a GC rider, but against the big classics riders—to say nothing of the rocket men like Pithie and Philipsen, who were still in the bunch at this point—he’d be toast.
Pogačar needed to at the very least narrow the field down to half a dozen riders early. Ideally, he’d make his escape on his own. A rider like Van Gils—nowhere near Pogačar’s ability as a sprinter, or as recognizable—might be able to count on a breakdown of cooperation in the pursuing group, but Pogačar would always be marked no matter where he went. Even when Wellens finally got UAE to the front, van der Poel was right up Pogačar’s ass the whole way. The two favorites were not going to let each other get out of sight.
So Pogačar had to find a spot where he could actually outrun van der Poel. But the Poggio is only one climb, and neither steep enough nor long enough for the Dutchman’s extra 20 pounds to act as ballast. Even Ganna, who has another 15 pounds on van der Poel, was hanging on to van der Poel.
Within two kilometers, Wellens was already starting to drag, and while the riders behind Pogačar were line astern, there were dozens still in contact.
With 6.5 kilometers left, Wellens gave up the ghost just as Pogačar hit the steepest part of the climb—a mere 8 percent gradient—but the young Slovenian hit the afterburners.
Within the length of a football field, Pogačar had created gaps, but van der Poel was still right on his tail, with Bettiol right behind van der Poel and Ganna behind Bettiol. Only then did the field start to split, with a couple bike lengths back to Pedersen. So Pogačar swung off the front and stopped pedaling. So too did van der Poel, and within seconds the top 10 or so riders were all back together.
Pogačar wanted to create the winning move, and he had. But instead of going solo, or at the very least taking one or two riders with him, he’d brought 11. With a couple exceptions, this would be the final group. And it included not just van der Poel, but the great descenders—Pidcock and Mohorič—and the great sprinters—Philipsen, Matthews, and Pedersen.
Matthews and Stuyven tried to counterattack after they caught Pogačar, and once that duo was brought back, Pogačar gave it one last effort, 200 meters from the top of the Poggio. That’s where the video below starts.
This time, he made about 20 meters’ headway against van der Poel, who in turn distanced Ganna and Bettiol. Bettiol has a history of medium-range solo breaks, winning Milano-Torino in that fashion just last week.
If Pogačar’s first attack had created the final group—van der Poel, Ganna, Bettiol, and Pogačar himself—Bettiol would’ve had a great chance to slip away while the others were busy watching each other. But once Ganna couldn’t close down van der Poel, that avenue to victory closed. And Bettiol doesn’t descend or sprint well enough to win out over the other 11 riders in the final group.
ELIMINATED: Alberto Bettiol, 5.9 km remaining
Van der Poel didn’t let Pogačar draw out too big a lead; the world champion had all but made the junction by the time they crested the Poggio. At this point, there was no point in Pogačar working. Van der Poel had a teammate in the chasing group, and would outsprint Pogačar anyway. By the time he got back on Pogačar’s wheel, it was all over for the two-time Tour de France winner.