"Doing it for 200 kilometres, the story gets a little bit different": Silvan Dillier on spending four and a half hours alone on the front at Milano-Sanremo

While Tadej Pogacar was winning his first Milano-Sanremo and Tom Pidcock was giving everything in the sprint on the Via Roma, Silvan Dillier had already done his job long before the race reached its climax. The 35-year-old Swiss rider spent four and a half hours on the front of the peloton, alone, averaging 340 watts over 200 kilometres to keep the breakaway in check. Nobody helped him. Nobody was going to.

Controlling the breakaway at Milano-Sanremo is nothing new for Dillier. It is essentially his assigned role every year at La Primavera. "I already did Milan-San Remo a couple of times. Every year, it is basically my task to control the breakaway, and I did it alone last year already. So yeah, I was kind of aware what could happen again last Saturday," he told Cyclingnews.

What makes the task so demanding is not the power itself, but the duration of it. "If I have to push 350 watts, it's not a big deal if I do it for half an hour, or even an hour, it's quite okay. But doing it for 200 kilometres, the story gets a little bit different." Heading into the race, Dillier was not even sure his form was good enough to repeat last year's effort. In the end, he actually put out more power than twelve months earlier.

To get through it mentally, he relies on a simple strategy. "I try to think about nothing, kind of meditating on the bike. I try to break down my whole effort into smaller pieces. I had these 15-minute markers where I would eat something or drink something. And then, after a couple of these, when you really start to get into your rhythm and flow, 15 minutes actually passes by pretty quickly."

With an FTP of around 400-420 watts and 120 grams of carbs per hour going in, the body can be managed. The mind is another matter.

What surprised both Dillier and his team was the complete absence of support from other squads. With Pogacar as one of the race favourites, UAE Team Emirates would have been the obvious candidate to share the workload. They chose not to.

"It's surprising, because you have basically one of the biggest favorites of the race, and you're not willing to control. It seems to be a little bit odd. But in the end, we also have one of the big favorites in our team. We have, even with Jasper, another good card to play. So for us, it was no question that we would control the race."

Dillier also acknowledged the trade-off that comes with doing it alone. "I actually get a lot of positive feedback about my ride, which I guess I would not get if I would have shared the work. But then, if I would have somebody to help me on this task, I could maybe go longer. We would also control it differently, we would maybe give the breakaway more time."

Despite Van der Poel's crash and the team's failure to add a fourth consecutive Milano-Sanremo victory, Dillier takes genuine pride in his own performance. The disappointment is real, but it does not overshadow what he delivered on the day. And his belief in his team leader remains absolute. "Without the crash, without the problem with his hand, he would still have been able to win it. Win it a third time himself and a fourth in a row for the team."