It was, in some respects, another day at the office for Brandon McNulty to support UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader Tadej Pogačar, but it was not so straightforward a task at Milan-San Remo. It was a debut for the US rider at the opening Monument of the season, and a sixth appearance Pogačar. The process, however, was fraught with two significant crashes and team adjustments across the six-and-a-half hours of racing.
The US rider was in the thick of the action across the 298 kilometres, which wasn’t decided until the final 200 metres with the World Champion winning a final kick to the line ahead of Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5). Across the opening 55 kilometres from Pavia to San Remo, the peloton looked to be biding their time until the turn south on the Ligurian Coast, but the first disaster struck.
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“So yeah, we already were down one, but the guys went crazy through all the Capi,” described McNulty of the catch and push to the front, the plan to set up Pogačar at the base of the Cipressa. “Then we had a bit of trouble.”
That ‘bit of trouble’ was a second disaster when Pogačar went down in a crash with about 10km to the start of the Cipressa and 32km to the finish. He went down with Visma-Lease a Bike duo Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson, Biniam Girmay (NSN), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Giulio Pellizzari (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
Pogačar suffered cuts and scrapes with…
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