Cycling: Mathieu van der Poel wins Milan-San Remo

In recent years, winning Milan-San Remo, the first great classic of the cycling season, has generally required a great climb or a brilliant descent on the Poggio, a steep hill about ten kilometers from the finish. On Saturday 18 March, Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel won both alone, fifteen seconds ahead of three other stars in the peloton: Italian Filippo Gana (2).^e), Belgian Wout Van Aert (3^e) and Slovenian Tadej Pogakar (4^e).

With victory in Sanremo, van der Pol adds a third ‘monument’ to his list, the title of the most prestigious one-day races, following his successes in 2020 and 2022 at the Tour of Flanders. Symbolically, the Dutchman also won the same event as his grandfather, Raymond Pulidor, 62 years after him. “I was at my best todayexplained the leader of the Alpecin-Deceuninck team after the victory. I was focused on this race for a long time. »

Pogakar accelerations

Van der Pol found himself leading the race in the Poggio following the acceleration gained from the UAE formation by Tadej Pogakkar and his team-mates. The winner of the 2020 and 2021 Tour de France made his first attack 8 kilometers from the finish line. His second attack, 1.4 kilometers later, broke all of his pursuers except for Filippo Gana, Watt van Aert and, consequently, Mathieu van der Poel. Just when you thought these four men would reach the finish line together, van der Poel went on the attack, a few hectometres from the top of the Poggio, with every body and heart red.

Passing the phone booth that marks the start of the winding descent to Sanremo, the Dutchman was 5 seconds ahead of his chaser. Not letting up, the man, who is also the cyclocross world champion, gradually made that small capital pay off by hitting the slopes and carving out some tight turns. “I couldn’t imagine a better scenario, Van der Poel noted. At the end of the Poggio I wanted to attack. How I did it exceeded my expectations. »