Can Pogacar at last score in Milan – San Remo and in
Paris – Roubaix next year?
Why not? It’s
not yet 2026 and already we are asking can the star of the new Millennium, Tadej
Pogacar the 27-year-old Slovenian, at last win the two Monuments missing from his impressive
palmares.
They are the spring classic Milan – San Remo in
March and the cobbled Hell of the North, the Paris-Roubaix, in April.
We know he’s targeting both and needs to be at his
best. Let’s focus on his first challenge, the season-opener, the longest
classic of them all at some 300 kilometres, Milan – San Remo which he will
start for the sixth time. He has twice finished third.
Clearly Pogacar is wary of his main rivals, double
winner in San Remo Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert, winner in 2020; not
to mention the reigning Olympic road and time trial champion Remco Evenpoele.
The question is, can he win it in his trade mark
fashion, deny the sprinters with a long lone break no one else can match?
His most recent audacious triumphs have included defending
his world road race title in Rwanda last September, going solo 66km out from
the finish.
And the next month he won his fifth consecutive Tour
of Lombardia, the closing classic of the season, with an equally astonishing
lone break of 50 kilometres.
We know he can
sprint. Here’s a couple. On the opening stage of the Criterium du Dauphine this
year he outsprinted Jonas Vingegaard and Mathieus Van de Poel. On stage 4 of
the Tour de France in Rouen this year, he outsprinted Van der Poel to chalk up
his 100th victory.
But the lone attack seems to have become his modus
operandi.
The question is can this serve him in Milan - San
Remo?
I can find no record of anyone doing so from a long
way out. For Milan – San Remo is known
as the sprinters classic, with a super group at the head of the race going full
pelt, pulling back the usual earlier breakaway of hopefuls who sometimes stay
clear for a long while.
The race favours those who have the legs to get
clear on the infamous final climb of the Poggio, five kilometres from the end, or on rare
occasions, by anyone mad enough to attack on the twisting descent which bottoms
out in San Remo about 2km from the line. There is often only seconds separating
the first few at the finish.
But last March, the race winning trio formed on the
Cipressa, some 22 kilometres from the finish.
The race starts from Milan in the industrial heart
of Northern Italy to finish in the fashionable seaside resort of San Remo on
the Italian Riviera.
From the start, field heads south west over the
plains of Lombardy and Piedmont, via the cities of Pavia, Voghera, Tortona,
Novi Ligure and Ovada.
At Liguria, the riders tackle their first hurdle of
the day, the Turchino Pass after 140 kilometres.
They are at almost half distance here and after the
descent soon reach the spectacular Ligurian Coast, which they will hug all the
way to Remo passing through many seaside resorts, the blue sea to t heir left. They
must tackle three short climbs, the Capo Mele, Capo Cervo and Capo Berta in San
Lorenzo al Mare. Now the course loops inland towards what is often the first
big shakedown, the climb of the Cipressa with a summit 22 kilometres from the
finish.
The peloton is usually much reduced by this point,
but still a sizeable group rejoins the coast road, now moving at a fair lick
and facing one last hurdle, the Poggio, 5.4km from the line.
They hit this slope and all hell breaks loose,
attack after attack.
What are the odds of Pogacar - who has attacked up
here before – doing so again and this time getting clear? Can he land this
elusive victory this time?
Let us take a look at his five previous attempts; 12th
in 2020; 5th in 2022; 4th in 2023; 3rd in both
2024 and 2025.
Take a look at the main players in each of those
finishes.
The
2020 edition was won in a close sprint by Wout Van Aert from Julian Alaphilippe
both in the same time – 7 hours, 16 minutes nine seconds.
Breathing
down their necks at two seconds, Michael Matthews took third outsprinting Peter
Sagan and a large groups including Pogacar placed 12th.
The 2022 edition
taken won by Matej Mohorič, executing a brilliant solo attack on the descent of the Poggio
to finish two seconds clear of Anthony Turgis; Van der Pol was third with
Pogacar 5th, from a group of seven.
2023 Van per Poel won alone,
15 seconds ahead of Filippo Ganna second with Van Aert third and
Pogacar fourth, all in the same time.
In
2024 it came down to another group sprint all given the same time , with Jasper
Philipsen first from Matthews with Pogacar third.
2025
Van der Poel won for the second time, beating Ganna. Pogacar was third again in a sprint finish
after the trio had escaped the peloton on the Cipressa 22 kilometres out. They finished 43 seconds ahead of the next group
led in by Michael Matthews.
It
was notable that it was Pogacar who started that move on the Cipressa,
rocketing ahead of the group from which only Van der Poel and Ganna were able
to bridge the widening the gap on the fastest ever ascent of the climb.
Cue
for 2026!
No comments:
Post a Comment