Perfection was not enough. He touched excellence and there is no way. Not even embroidering the plan could win. He was outstanding and was third, like last year, with the desire. The Milan-Sanremo escaped again. The classicissima continues to resist, it is its forbidden fruit. The dynamite of Tadej Pogacar exploded all sprinters in the Cipressa, something that had not seen many years. Five attacks launched in the last 27 kilometers, tenacious, encaled in being alone, but in none he could distance Van der Poel, aware that resisting was to overcome, that he could not give in a meter. The Dutch of the Alpecin, winner already in 2023, welded his wheel, clung again at the climb to the Poggio and surprised being the first to launch the sprint, his land, where he was and was superior to Ganna (INEOS) and Pogacar (UAE).
This way of losing (or not winning, that for the Slovenian is usually the same) will only grow his obsession with Sanremo, the Spring World Cup. On the other hand, Eltriunfo in Via Roma confirms Van der Poel as the spring giant, as a colossal classicomaniac. It is his seventh monument: two Sanremo, three tours of Flanders and two Paris-Roubaix.
There is only one career in which you do everything right and can leave you without a prize. It is an indecipherable test, even for the best cyclist of the 21st century. An impossible mystery to tame.
The story is stubborn. In 1973 it was the last time that a current winner of the Tour was awarded the Sanremo. It was Merckx, of course. And that was the feat that Pogacar was looking for, also dressed in the rainbow jersey. He stayed close and gave a show without equal. But he surpassed Van der Poel.
The classicissima are 289 kilometers of which only 17 are in ports. Give the idea of the difficulty he embodies for a climber cyclist like Pogacar. And although it is not ideal for him, the leader of the UAE managed to put the race off up.
It is easy to say it and think about it but very complicated to do it. But he got down to work and shattered the Philipsen, Pedersen, Milan, Girmay, Cort or Matthews in the Cipressa. When they crowned 22 from the goal, they were discarded.
Before, the UAE barely spent its cyclists. It is other teams that work to throw down the getaway. The henchmen of Pogacar are calm. Everything calm that can go when you enter the climb to the cypressa at 58 km/h.
There begins the zafarrancho. There they will burst the squad in shatter. Wellens, who had been with its leader for several days in Sanremo calculating the strategy, is put in the lead to prepare the land. And then it’s the Ecuadorian Narváez, who opens gas and more gas. All in a row. And in the absence of 24.7 km, when there are three from the Cipressa, it starts Pogacar as a ray.
They only follow Van der Poel and, with some problem, Ganna. They get half a minute and do not think about it. They go to block because the podium already has the owner, it is yours. “We have done the plan we had drawn. It was very optimistic to stay alone. I have gone with Pippo and Mathieu,” said Slovenian, as ambitious as generous in the effort. In the Poggio prepare three new accelerations, one below, another in the middle and an almost up, but Van der Poel not only does not move but ends big and defends himself with an attack.
Almost in the Rome Via reaches them ganna but Poulidor’s grandson knows the fastest and enforces his explosiveness. “I have given everything. I am satisfied but next year I will come back for more,” he conforms, that does not yield, Pogacar. Van der Poel took his caramel.
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