"I don't hate Milano-Sanremo but one year it needs to go right" - Pogacar fails to deliver on UAE's almost perfect preparation

Tadej Pogacar had the ultimate goal of winning Milano-Sanremo this weekend and nothing but that would be a satisfying result. The World Champion and UAE Team Emirates - XRG blew up the race and were incredibly close to succeeding in their mission but only came away with a podium result after perfectly launching an attack on the Cipressa.

For Pogacar, who has now three years of consecutive attempts at finally winning it - in several different ways - has now seen once again a stronger rival take over him. "I don't hate Milan-San Remo but one year it needs to go right," the Slovenian told Cyclingnews in words that are quite marking, a display of the disappointment he at times seems to not show. "For sure we will come for more next year".

UAE had a lineup built piece-by-piece to tackle the Italian monument, and everyone but Isaac del Toro seemed to have played their role to perfection. The Mexican struggled with positioning at the entrance of the Cipressa, but there was no delaying the plan. Tim Wellens and Jhonatan Narváez set a nuclear pace that shred the peloton to bits and then Pogacar's attack created the big gaps. In reality, the only thing preventing him from winning likely was the fact that Mathieu van der Poel managed to follow him - no-one else managed to. One rider only managed to derail UAE's plans.

"We did everything possible, not just me. I can be really proud about how we rode today. Every year we do better and we showed more aggression and more willpower on the Cipressa. Today we did an amazing race, I tried to finish it off, but there were two guys faster than me," the Slovenian laments.

"I tried to go alone on the Cipressa, but it would be really optimistic for it to work but I was also happy to go away with Mathieu and Filippo". In reality taking off solo in the Cipressa was very much possible, even likely, but knowing this plan is now possible to win Sanremo, we could see UAE trying to deploy it once again next year.