With 32 km to go in Saturday’s first Monument of the Season, La Primavera, Milan-Sanremo, Tadej Pogačar was on the ground. He bounced up to beat Tom Pidcock in a two-up sprint by the width of a wheel. The world champion only has Paris-Roubaix missing from his Monuments palmares.
Preliminaries
So far, UAE-Emirates had claimed four of the WorldTour’s seven rounds. Last season, Pogačar, Filippo Ganna and Mathieu van der Poel threw haymakers on the Cipressa and the Poggio, with the Dutchman prevailing in La Primavera for the second time.
Pier-André Côté was the lone Canadian.
The Course
The first half of the 298 km route traveled south from Pavia to the first climb of the day, sharp little Passo Turchino. After a 12 km descent to Genoa, the race headed southwest along the Ligurian coast, finally reaching the three Capi at the 245 km point. Kilometre 270 was where 6-km Cipressa made a selection. The famed Poggio crested with 6 km to the line. A harrowing descent past the greenhouses led to the finish line on Via Roma.
As in the Donne edition, there were nine riders in the day’s breakaway, plenty of ProTeam and Italian cats in the nontet. The fugitives headed towards Genoa with a 2:30 gap. Two of the escapees were from the Polti VisitMalta squad, clad on Saturday in 90s throwback kits.
The breakaway’s lead stayed steady up the Passo del Turchino before the descent into Genoa. But on the way to the Capi, the gap oddly ballooned to 6:30. UAE-Emirates and Alpecin-Premier Tech needed to get busy. Pidcock’s Pinarello-Q36.5 was massed behind UAE-Emirates locomotive. Bahrain-Victorious pitched in.
By Capo Mele the nontet was 4:00 ahead of the peloton. Two more minutes had been shaved off by Capo Berta.
A crash with 32 km to go and most of the fugitives sopped up took down Pogačar and Wout van Aert.
Pogačar was not back by the time the Cipressa kicked up but he made it all the way to the front with his team pulling. Isaac del Toro whipped up the pace. With 2.6 km to go, the world champion launched. Van der Poel and Pidcock went with him.
The trio expanded its lead on the descent of the Cipressa. Lidl-Trek chased.
The Elite Three steamed towards the Poggio. With the chase closing in, the…
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