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.