Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin) bided his time for six plus hours before launching the perfect attack on the Poggio to propel him to victory in the 114th edition of Milan-San Remo. Rounding out the podium in 2nd was Filippo Ganna (Ineos) and Wout van Aert (Jumbo/Visa) in 3rd.
Van der Poel’s brilliant counter-attack at the top of the Poggio was spectacular, but even more so was the manner in which Van der Poel descended. Slaloming down the serpentine descent, Van der Poel gave a master class in descending and accelerating that had TV commentators drawing comparisons to his skills in cyclo-cross.
For all their efforts, the three chasers Ganna, Van Aert, and Pogačar couldn’t reduce the gap and bring Van der Poel back. By the time he crossed the line, Van der Poel had 15 seconds over his pursuers and plenty of time to celebrate his victory.
Van der Poel’s rivals had only praise to give afterwards:
“In the end, Mathieu van der Poel put a good effort. It split the bunch. I’m a little bit disappointed to come second but I’m satisfied with my performance.” – Filippo Ganna
“Mathieu showed everybody that he was super strong. He did a strong move at the right moment” – Wout van Aert
“I couldn’t follow [Van der Poel] he was too strong. I crossed the line dead.” – Tadej Pogačar
