There is a long-standing tactical manual for how to win Milan-San Remo. You save every single watt for 280 kilometers. You aggressively fight for position. You avoid the crashes. And you absolutely, under no circumstances, hit the deck right before the most critical, explosive section of the entire race.
Today, Tadej Pogačar took that tactical manual, threw it into the Ligurian Sea, and proved that the normal rules of human physiology simply do not apply to him.
The World Champion finally captured La Classicissima—his fourth career Monument—in the most absurdly dramatic fashion imaginable. He crashed just before the Cipressa, orchestrated a frantic chase back to the front, attacked anyway, dropped Mathieu van der Poel on the Poggio, and then narrowly out-sprinted Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling) on the Via Roma.
The Imperia Carnage
For the first six hours of the 298-kilometer slog from Pavia, everything went according to the traditional script. A doomed early breakaway rolled up the road, Alpecin-Premier Tech controlled the pace, and the peloton casually consumed thousands of calories.
But as the race hit the coast and the tension ratcheted up, the inevitable chaos ensued. Inside the final 35 kilometers, passing through Imperia on the approach to the Cipressa, disaster struck. Pogačar went down hard in a left-hand bend, completely shredding the left side of his World Champion’s skinsuit. The crash caused a massive accordion effect that also caught up Wout van Aert (Visma | Lease a Bike) and Mathieu van der Poel.
For about 30 seconds, it looked like the highly anticipated Pogačar vs. Van der Poel duel was over before it even started. But UAE Team Emirates-XRG simply refused to accept reality. Florian Vermeersch and Felix Großschartner dragged their battered leader back through the cars, and the UAE mountain train miraculously delivered Pogačar to the front of the peloton just as the road kicked up.
The Unthinkable Cipressa Attack
Normally, when a rider burns that many matches just to reconnect with the peloton after a crash, they try to hide in the wheels and recover. Pogačar instead decided to stick to his pre-race plan of violence.
After a blistering lead-out from Brandon McNulty and Isaac Del Toro, Pogačar launched a thermonuclear acceleration with 2.2 kilometers still left to climb on the Cipressa. It was a massive, sustained effort. Only two riders could follow him: Pidcock and a bloodied Van der Poel, whose hand and arm were visibly scraped from the earlier crash.
The trio crested the Cipressa with a significant gap, throwing the surviving sprinters and domestiques in the chasing group into panic.
Breaking the World Champion
By the time the leaders hit the base of the Poggio, the gap had been slashed to just eight seconds thanks to a frantic chase led by Visma’s Matteo Jorgenson.
Sensing the peloton breathing down his neck, Pogačar went again. And this time, Mathieu van der Poel cracked. The two-time defending champion, clearly hindered by his injured hand from the Imperia crash, simply couldn’t hold the wheel on the shallow gradients he normally dominates.
Only Pidcock managed to survive the surge, clinging to Pogačar’s slipstream as they crested the summit and absolutely bombed down the twisting, technical descent toward San Remo.
On the flat run-in along the Via Roma, the dynamic was nerve-wracking. The chasing group, which now contained Wout van Aert, was closing in fast. Pogačar, wary of being caught, was forced to lead out the two-up sprint. Pidcock timed his jump well and drew level, but Pogačar dug deep to edge out the Brit by half a wheel at the line.
Van Aert salvaged an impressive third place from the chasing group, but the day belonged entirely to Pogačar.
Results
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