"I knew I wanted to attack at the end of the Poggio" - Mathieu van der Poel's plan works to perfection at Milano-Sanremo

Sensational victory for Mathieu van der Poel in Milan-San Remo with an attack in the final meters of the climb to the Poggio that left Tadej Pogacar, Filippo Ganna and Wout van Aert completely without reaction.

After the test, he acknowledged that he couldn't imagine a better scenario and explained in detail what his plan was once he saw that in Cipressa he had good legs: "I can't imagine a better scenario than this, I told the team there was a crosswind at Cipressa, it wasn't as hard as in other years and I told them my legs were fresh."

As UAE Team Emirates pushed the pace up the Poggio van der Poel began to feel what was his best legs. Tadej Pogacar attacked and created a four-rider group that went up the road. Then, van der Poel made his move. "I knew I wanted to attack at the end of the Poggio. I had to closing a couple of gaps with Pogacar," he said. "In the end this is one of the races I've always wanted to win and the way I did it today I think it's above expectations. I'm very happy."

Asked about the fact that his grandfather, Raymond Poulidor, won the race 62 years ago: "It's not only special for that, but also because it's a monument and it's one of the races that any runner wants to win, I had my focus on this one. career since I started training again. In Tirreno things were also not as I expected, but what I wanted was to reach my best level, which I think has arrived today".