Perfection doesn’t exist in professional cycling, there are too many variables and too much human suffering involved. Yet Mathieu van der Poel seems in perfect form and has the perfect talents and race-smart tactics to win Milan-San Remo for a third time on Saturday. The Dutchman is the archetypal Spring Classics winner of his generation. He and even Tadej Pogačar seem to know it too.
Pogačar desperately wants to win Milan-San Remo but knows nature has dealt the Alpecin-Premier Tech leader a better hand of cards for La Classicissima. He can win Grand Tours and virtually any other race but when he lines up in Pavia on Saturday morning, deep down Pogačar knows Van der Poel can beat him. He has done it twice already and that must be unnerving for the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader.
In 2023, Van der Poel surged away from Pogačar near the top of the Poggio and won alone in the Via Roma in a faultless execution of the Milan-San Remo winner’s unwritten manual.
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Last year the Alpecin-Premier Tech leader was able to stay with Pogačar when he made his all-out attack on the earlier Cipressa climb. He then responded to all the Slovenian’s countermoves on the Poggio and then won again in the Via Roma with a long-range power sprint. Pogačar was arguably stronger in both races but Van der Poel raced far more intelligently and crucially was far faster in the Via Roma sprint.
“I think my form is more than good enough to win Milan-San Remo,” Van der Poel said ominously during the final days of this year’s Tirreno-Adriatico.
“I’m happy with the preparation I’ve had. Now I need to do more or less the same thing as last year, with a few extra details here and there. Then I should be fine.”
“That is always a difficult question,” he said. “I think I’m simply at a very good level, but to say right now that I’m in the best shape of my life… I don’t know. But I’m definitely very happy with it.”
A spring Classics bloom rooted in cyclo-cross suffering
Van der Poel peaks each season for the spring Classics, a window of greatness that is rooted in his eight cyclo-cross world titles and then blooms across three weeks between Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
He rode and won this year’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad but arguably only because he was itching to get back racing after three weeks of training and staying in the Syncrosfera altitude hotel. He pushed back from pressure to ride Strade Bianche, knowing it did not fit in with his plans for his three-week super peak. He will perhaps add the Tuscan Classic to his spring campaign in 2027, when he is not expected to target the cyclo-cross World Championships.
Van der Poel is 31 and so a veteran of the sport but only started targeting the Classics in 2019 and first raced a full road season and the Tour de France in 2021. Yet he knows himself so well and knows how to peak and win every spring.
He has already won eight Monument Classics, the 2023 World title, Strade Bianche in 2021 and the 2019 Amstel Gold Race with that epic long sprint chase. He has won the Tour of Flanders three times and a fourth win would put him amongst the true Classics greats. A fourth Paris-Roubaix victory would be placed alongside Tom Boonen and Roger De Vlaeminck but nobody has ever won four in a row.
History awaits him in the next three weeks. Van der Poel is the only active rider to have won Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix and a third win at Milan-San Remo could set him up for a historic spring Monument triple.
How Van der Poel controls Pogačar’s Cipressa attack tactic
Van der Poel has ridden Milan-San Remo six times but seems to understand the race like a local Ligurian and arguably better than Pogačar, who is a Montecarlo resident and a frequent visitor to the Cipressa and Poggio.
Pogačar’s aggressive racing style on the Cipressa has changed the finale of Milan-San Remo, making it far more selective and thrilling for far longer. Van der Poel has carefully adapted his tactics and racing style to equal and defeat Pogačar.He has learnt to be the Artful Dodger of Classic racing and Milan-San Remo winning, nimble at picking Pogačar’s pocket without him even realising it.
Pogačar went all-in on with a violent attack on the Cipressa last year and is likely to do something similar this year. It is his best card in a weak hand for Milan-San Remo. Only Van der Poel and Filippo Ganna were able to go with him on the Cipressa in a moment of power racing reserved for a select few. The three then stayed away thanks to help from a tailwind along the Mediterranean coast and then Van der Poel responded to Pogačar’s every attack before beating him in the sprint. Pogačar may try to climb the Cipressa even faster this year, going significantly under his nine-minute record for the 5.7km 4% climb or even trying to go away solo.
Van der Poel will again be ready and waiting.
“I expect more or less the same scenario as in previous years. Last year Tadej came very close,” Van der Poel pointed out, already playing a pre-race tactical game.
“What they did last year is, in my opinion, not something that is possible every year. We had the perfect wind on the Cipressa and also to get to the Poggio. If it’s a headwind, I think it’s a different story.”
Van der Poel latched onto Pogačar when he attacked mid-Cipressa after the tight hairpin turn and final surge by his teammate Jhonatan Narváez, as the road kicked up briefly at 9%. Van der Poel knows he has to be on his wheel again when the Slovenian dynamites the race.
“Last year he was already very close to getting a gap. If I’m 1% off, Tadej will be gone on the Cipressa. It’s only a matter of time before he wins that race,” Van der Poel said sportingly, while also teasing UAE Team Emirates into a false move and energy-consuming control of the peloton before the Cipressa.
“In the past, you shouldn’t have even thought about attacking on the Cipressa, but Tadej and UAE have changed that, making Milan-San Remo a far harder but more spectacular race.”
‘He’s such a killer’
175 riders will roll out of Pavia on Saturday morning but only Pogačar and Van der Poel are realistically expected to have a chance of victory.
“In 95% of the scenarios, either Pogačar breaks away alone or Van der Poel wins in a sprint between the two, with perhaps a third rider joining them, like Ganna did last year,” cycling expert and former rider Thijs Zonneveld said recently in his Dutch In De Waaier podcast.
“The other 5% is simply that they neutralise each other and everything comes together. Milan-San Remo was the Classic where almost anyone could win. Sprinters could win, classic specialists could win, everyone actually had a chance. Now it’s basically a race where only two people can win.”
Former Giro d’Italia winner and cycling analyst Tom Dumoulin fears that Pogačar will crack Van der Poel on the Cipressa this year. But if he doesn’t then Van der Poel is the favourite to win again.
“Nine times out of ten, Mathieu will beat Pogačar in the sprint. He’s such a killer,” the former Dutch pro and Giro d’Italia winner said in the NOS podcast, perfectly summarising Van der Poel’s Milan-San Remo talents and perhaps the key expected outcome on Saturday.
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