The start list includes five previous winners of the race: Philipsen (2024), van der Poel (2023), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Victorious, 2022), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek, 2021) and Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro, 2019). But one name is conspicuous by its absence from that list of previous winners: Pogačar.
The rider who has won just about everything else there is to win in the sport has failed in four tries to win this longest of all Monuments (289 km). He finished twelfth in 2020, fifth in 2022, fourth in 2023 and third last year. In 2024, he was outsprinted by both Philipsen and Michael Mathews (Jayco AlUla), who will also be at the starting line come Saturday. Both are bona fide sprinters with more of a turn of foot than the Slovenian.
The reason that the race has been such a bear for the world champion and the best one-day rider in the world is that it is too easy. Yes, Milano-Sanremo is one of the most difficult Classics to win, precisely because it isn’t difficult enough to keep a large group of good riders from having a shot at victory. The climbs are simply not hard enough for a rider to drop all of his opponents, so it is usually a question of fatigue, luck or tactics.
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In 2024, no fewer than 12 riders contested the final sprint. In 2022, eight riders were there at the finish. In 2023, van der Poel burst out of a small group of riders, including Pogačar and Ganna, with 5.4 km to go in the race and soloed to his win, taking advantage of the fatigue of his main rivals and his relative freshness. For Pogačar to finally win, he has to find a way to make the race difficult for the one-day specialists and the sprinters via, say, a plague of locusts, a small earthquake or rain.
Though there have been serious locust infestations of the island of Sardinia over the past few years, there aren’t enough locusts around Milan to cause an annoyance, let alone a plague. An earthquake? No chance. But there is a better than 50% chance of a little rain on Saturday morning, and wind gusts up to 19kph are forecast, which might play into the Slovenian’s hands.
However, the roads and descents of the course are narrow and a bit tricky, and Pogačar did crash on a descent in the Strade Bianche nearly two weeks ago, so he may prefer to ride cautiously if the pavement is wet. And what about the after-effects of that crash? In a recent interview, UAE’s team manager Joxean Fernández Matxin tried to reassure the Slovenian’s fans, but his words were not really reassuring.
“It’s true that the first two days after the crash he was sore and had discomfort,” Matxin told Relevo. “But every day, he’s gotten a little better. Honestly, I don’t know if he has any degree of pain or discomfort right now. I spoke with him […], but we haven’t fully analysed it because, obviously, the medical team and the trainers are responsible for that.”
Asked if his superstar would be at 100% on Saturday, Matxin replied, “I don’t know if he’ll be 100%, but he’ll be fine.”
There are better bike-handlers than Pogačar in the race, e.g., van der Poel and Pidcock. So maybe he should go for a very long solo ride, hoping that no one will dare to follow him when he takes off, say, 150 km from the finish. But that’s a lot even for him to ride on his own. His best hope then might be to have his team ride a very fast pace and try to weaken as many of his rivals as possible.
The squad is loaded with strong riders who can keep up a high cadence over long distances, such as the young Mexican Isaac del Toro, who just won his first one-day race at the Milano-Torino, Jhonathan Narváez, Nils Pollitt, and Tim Wellens. They will have to take the sting out of the legs of the sprinters and hope that their leader can outwit and/or outride the rest.
But that’s easier said than done, especially as Milan, Kooij and especially Pedersen are very good climbers, and in top form at the moment. Pedersen’s performance in the recent Paris-Nice, in which he won the green jersey and climbed the hills like a goat, stamped him as a legitimate contender for the win. As did Ganna’s second-place finish in the Tirreno-Adriatico.
Van der Poel also raced in the Tirreno and narrowly missed a stage win. He rode that race to prepare for this race and he looked very strong. My philosophy when in doubt is to go with van der Poel because he is always a threat, is a great bike-handler and a supreme tactician.
In his interview with Relevo, Joxean Fernández Matxin talked about how the race might pan out and why it will be hard for Pogačar to win it: “A race of more than six hours, which is almost 290 kilometres with an average speed of 46 km/h, to actually decide it in five minutes is a very peculiar race because in five minutes, there are riders of the same quality, in many cases even superior to Tadej – call them van Aert, van der Poel, we have Jhonathan Narváez, Mads Pedersen… None of us would be surprised if they were fighting in those decisive five minutes on the Poggio.”
The Poggio di Sanremo climb is short and not steep, 3.6 km @ 3.7%, but it comes with about 6 km left to ride in the race after the riders at the front have ridden 285 km at a very fast clip. Their legs will be hurting, their lungs will be aching, which is a great time for someone to go for broke, as van der Poel did in 2023. Unless the winning move comes on an earlier climb, or unless there are 15 riders in the lead group, or unless…
It’s an impossible race to predict, so I’ll just go with my gut and my heart and pick Pedersen to win it.
