"A lot of riders are able to survive the first attack of Pogacar" - Nathan van Hooydonck explains Tadej Pogacar's Milano-Sanremo hoodoo
Cycling
When Tadej Pogacar sets his sights on winning a race, there is usually only one outcome - the Slovenian crossing the finish line with his arms aloft in celebration. For that reason, the lack of success Pogacar has had at Milano-Sanremo over the years sticks out as a point of note. So just why has the UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader found winning Milano-Sanremo so difficult?
Well according to former Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider and now Eurosport pundit Nathan van Hooydonck, the answer is actually pretty simple. Milano-Sanremo is simply too easy for Pogacar to create real separation. "It's not hard enough for him, I think. He's definitely the strongest rider of his generation, the most versatile rider of his generation, but this race is super long, the concentration of difficulty is completely towards the final [parts of the race]," explains the Belgian on TNT Sports' Ultimate Cycling Show.
"It's difficult, but not too difficult, and a lot of riders are able to survive the first attack of Pogacar, some people are even able to match that attack," Van Hooydonck adds. "Whenever somebody is able to match that attack, tactics are going to play a role and then the race can go either way."
All of the talk surrounding Pogacar's Milano-Sanremo quest this year is about the Cipressa, a climb that is normally considered too early to make the winning move at Milano-Sanremo. "He's trying [to win it], he tries every year. On the Cipressa, the climb before the Poggio, it's a longer and harder climb than what the Poggio is," adds former British national champion Adam Blythe. "The last two years, he's really tried on there to split things up. But there's such a gap between the climbs where it's on the coast, and there's not enough climbing on there to make it hard, the groups will probably always come back together."
"For me, that's his problem. If it was closer together, he could attack earlier on the Cipressa. But I think there's 15 or 11 kilometres in between those climbs. It's a chance for him to recover, but it's also a chance for the sprinters to recover as well," continues Blythe. "If you can follow the first attack of Tadej, then it becomes a tactical battle, but when there are more people involved in a tactical battle, it becomes increasingly hard to win, because there's one rider going this way, one rider going that way, whereas Tadej has got one job to do and all eyes, sadly for him, are on that one move, so it becomes increasingly harder for him to win."
So ultimately, whilst Blythe doesn't fully rule Pogacar out (who would!?), the Brit doesn't believe the world champion will prevail this weekend. "I think it's becoming increasingly harder for him to get away because riders are changing the way they're training, becoming adapted to races such as this," he concludes. "I don't think he can't win it, but it's going to be harder and harder and harder to win it."
"He can definitely win it," Van Hooydonck insists in response to Blythe. "The Cipressa is the climb coming just before the Poggio, but the Cipressa is hard enough if you can ride a very fast pace from the bottom to the top. Tadej Pogacar cannot do it by himself, he needs his team to do so."
"His team needs to pace as fast as possible from the bottom to the top and that's how you can put the different sprinters under pressure and you can already distance them," he concludes. "Once he gets his team-mates over the Cipressa and onto the Poggio, they can again start riding a very, very fast pace and then he can launch the decisive attack."
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- Two riders unlike any others over the past few decades, during this era of carb fueling, seems relevant to me.RidesHills23-03-2025
- Funny that they shorten women’s races but have no qualms about letting U23 do the same distances.Jumpyjohn23-03-2025
- Why is that relevant when discussing speed?Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- But he wasn’t the only one ;-)Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- Obviously the questions are more important to some here than to them or the team so I suggest looking for answers instead of asking questions between ourselves. We’ll probably get them unless someone actually goes to ask the protagonists themselves. Here are some starters : They like riding together; they have their own rivalry that helps bring out the best in both; they might get more points helping each other compared to racing separate races. In any case, unless we hear MJ complaining about it, I don’t think it’s going to change, it’s the Sepp Kuss syndrome all over again, fans lobbying against the will of the rider.Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- Mine goes to MVDP for entertaining us all year round :-) Stellar race, Ganna impressive in his own way as many predicted after some oddly lacklustre times.Mistermaumau23-03-2025
- i remember when not too long ago mathieu was regarded as a real tactical knucklehead. i’m not sure that was ever quite accurate, but it’s certainly the case that over the years he has become a real master tactician. in the biggest races, van der poel rarely makes choices that don’t fully optimize every specific advantage he has.OCexile23-03-2025
- Whatever the result, I believe the strategy by UAE to launch Pogacar was absolutely the right one. Unfortunately, they just were not able to execute it the way they must have planned, being all over the place at the start of the Cipressa.Cooldude23-03-2025
- They are without doubt not just the best two classics riders of this generation, but amongst the best of all time. MvdP is more suited to MSR and PR (which Pog has yet to race), while Pog is now almost untouchable at LBL and Lombardia. RVV is the only one where both basically have an equal chance to win.Cooldude23-03-2025
- bravissima!
maria2024202423-03-2025