Three Quick Thoughts: Milano-Sanremo

A few quick post-race thoughts from today's Milano-Sanremo

Jasper Philipsen sealed the biggest victory of his career when he crossed the finish line a few centimeters ahead of Michael Matthews following a tightly contested reduced bunch sprint on the Via Roma in the Mediterranean seaside town of Sanremo along the picturesque Ligurian Coast. If the outcome was unexpected, it was at least partly due to severe tactical blunders from Tadej Pogačar’s UAE team, who, after biffing their attempt to rip the race to shreds on the slopes of the Cipressa, left Pogačar with only a single fatigued teammate, who, as a result of their overly aggressive tactics, was unable to set up a race-winning attack, on the slopes of the Poggio, and forced Pogačar to contest and come in an impressive third, in the reduced bunch sprint against far more powerful riders. Below are my quick thoughts about the day before the full race breakdown on Monday.

Milano-Sanremo 2024 Top Ten:
1) Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin) +0
2) Michael Matthews (Jayco-Alula) +0
3) Tadej Pogačar (UAE) +0
4) Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) +0
5) Alberto Bettiol (EF) +0
6) Matej Mohorič (Bahrain) +0
7) Maxim Van Gils (Lotto) +0
8) Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek)
9) Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) +0
10) Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin) +0

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1) Jasper Philipsen & Alpecin: In the course of just a few kilometers at the end of Saturday’s race, the 26-year-old Belgian was able to recast his early-season 2024 campaign from somewhat disappointing to a deftly calculated masterclass build into the biggest win of his career. After looking sluggish and off-the-pace at the Classics Opening Weekend (Omloop/Kuurne) and off-his-best following a crash at the recent Tirreno-Adriatico stage race, Philipsen looked unshakeable during the extremely fast ascent of the Poggio and confident as he sat in the wheels and let his superstar domestique-for-the-day Mathieu van der Poel close gaps before he launched his winning sprint.

• Outside of Philipsen’s incredible climbing performance and strong sprint after more than six hours of racing, the collective strength of his Alpecin-Deceuninck team and the seamless coordination with his teammate Van der Poel were the reasons for his surprise win.

  • While it may look slightly odd (not to mention rankling traditionalists) for a superstar of the sport to be throwing away a chance of a Monument victory to close gaps for a teammate (especially one that is out of contract at the end of the season), this is a trademark of the flat organization structure implemented by Team Manager Christoph Roodhooft that has paid major dividends and seen the team punch far above their budget in the last few seasons.

    • Some might take issue with their ultra-conservative tactic of having Van der Poel set a hard pace on the front to ensure a sprint finish, versus attacking to create a ‘reverse leadout’ that would have given both himself and Philipsen a chance of winning, the team’s results clearly speak for themselves. Since 2020, they have won five Monuments, which is astonishing when we consider that over the same time period, Soudal-QuickStep has three, Visma has two, and Ineos has one.

• Philipsen, for his part, is turning into one of the sport’s most prolific winners and a bonafide leader option in major one-day races.

  • Through 2022 and 2023, he trailed only Tadej Pogačar in pro wins (33 vs 28), and was tied with Remco Evenepoel in second place.

  • Since striking out at the 2021 Tour de France, where he finished on the podium six times without a single win, Philipsen has won 36 times, with nine Grand Tour stage wins and, most impressively, two one-day Monument podium finishes.

2) Tadej Pogačar & UAE: Judging from their pronouncements of riding an almost-absurd sub-nine-minute Cipressa throughout the week, UAE had clearly envisaged themselves lining up a high-speed train on the day’s penultimate climb to either launch a successful Pogačar solo attack, just like at the recent Strade Bianche, or dent the legs of his rivals to the extent that he would be able to ride clear on the final climb, the Poggio. But, when the rubber hit the road, their overly telegraphed move fell apart almost immediately, with Pogačar’s UAE teammates unable to position themselves on the front heading into the Cipressa, which left the young Isaac del Toro setting a hard pace on the front, but with Pogačar the only UAE rider on his wheel.

• While Del Toro’s pace was high enough to thin down the bunch, it wasn’t hard enough to drop any other serious favorites, which only served to fatigue and ultimately drop his UAE teammates.

  • This high pace slowed the race between the two final climbs (Cipressa and Poggio) since the small front group lacked enough pacemakers to keep the pace high. The riders up front slowed up and waited for their teammates to chase on from behind.

    • Ultimately, due to team-wide tactical errors and physical underperformance, their plan of a high pace on the Cipressa only had the effect of thinning out their own team, which actually slowed the pace on the ensuing climb of the Poggio since they had fewer riders left to set a hard pace, which meant Pogačar couldn’t get the separation he needed when launching his attack near the top.

• UAE’s positioning issues were likely somewhat related to their decision to send strong climbers instead of powerful rouleurs (like Nils Politt and Brandon McNulty) to explode the race on the Cipressa, which isn’t steep or long enough to favor featherweight climbers. Even if this attempt was executed perfectly, I’m still not certain it made any sense and only decreased Pogačar’s chances of victory.

  • For example, even if Pogačar had been able to launch off a strong UAE pace on the Cipressa and get clear, the relatively small amount of time dropped riders loose on the high-speed climb means that his rivals could have regrouped and chased with their teams (like Mads Pedersen and Lidl-Trek) on the flat before the Poggio, and likely would have caught the then exhausted Pogačar on the final, ultra-high-speed climb.

  • And, if UAE had set a nuclear sub-nine-minute pace on the Cipressa and Pogačar had refrained from an attack, it stands to reason that he, and his rivals, would have had few to no teammates remaining in the group when they crested the climb and would have been forced to attack off a much slower attack, and would have been followed by Van der Poel, who never truly looked under pressure over the final two climbs, and reeled in by Tom Pidcock, who was able to effortlessly close a large gap on the descent.

    • In the end, Pogačar’s best chance of winning this race was almost certainly going to come from a strong, but controlled pace on the Cipressa followed by a steady, hard pace to the Poggio to keep everyone who made it over with them on the limit, but launching an attack near the top of the climb, set up by a nuclear pace from the UAE teammates, after which he would have to hold a razor-thin lead to the finish line.

3) Milano-Sanremo remains the calendar’s most befuddling one-day race: Despite, or perhaps because of, featuring by far the easier course of the five one-day Monuments and concentrating all of its action within the final few minutes, advances in tactical, equipment, and fitness have made the marathon Italian race no more predictable, which means that it remains an almost ethereal event that requires even the biggest stars to solve a near-impossible puzzle, while going full speed, if they want a chance to win.

• In contrast to Monuments like the Tour of Flanders, Il Lombardia, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, which have become less about in-race tactics and more about simply being the strongest rider on the day, Milano-Sanremo stands with Paris-Roubaix as throwback one-day events that are still capable of serving up a long list of potential winners.

• Oddly, after years of debate and complaints about the lack of climbing features on the course, the aggressive and faster brand of modern racing we are currently experiencing has seemed to bring the ‘too easy’ course to life.

  • Even as the race, which used to push close to eight hours of racing, shrinks down to just over six hours with the increased speeds of modern racing, it still continues to mystify and deny even the most talented riders, like Tadej Pogačar, Tom Boonen, and Peter Sagan, victories, while rewarding the tactical patience of others.