Michel Wuyts points finger at Mathieu van der Poel as outright favorite for Milano-Sanremo: "It will be a piece of cake for him"

Mathieu van der Poel's early season programme may appear like it was sewn with a hot needle, but Michel Wuyts tries to see the big picture behind Van der Poel's decision to skip Strade Bianche and instead ride the Tirreno-Adriatico. According to the analyst, Van der Poel is carefully preparing for Milano-Sanremo.

At Tirreno, he finds two nice stages where he can test his readiness for the first Monument of the 2025 season. "On that first day you have an extension [of Poggio and Cipressa] and on the second day there is still a descent," he refers to stage 3 and 5 in the Wuyts & Vlaeminck podcast.

Depending on how those tests go, Wuyts is not afraid to mark the Dutchman as an outright favorite for La Primavera. "Those are stages that he has to be able to handle. Let's say that it is an extended Poggio twice. That seems to me to be an excellent practice for Milano-Sanremo, which he will win by the way. I dare to write that down now. Also add that it will be a piece of cake."

The biggest rival will normally be Tadej Pogacar, who according to Wuyts will still suffer from his crash in Strade Bianche. "It also has psychological consequences. I'm worried about the Poggio section. You're not going to tell me that if you've had such a crash, that it's completely gone [from your mind]."

Wuyts continues: "That you don't think twice when entering similar bends that are even tighter on the Poggio. I think that you win Milano-Sanremo more in the descent than in the last five hundred meters."

Wuyts is not alone in this theory, he says. "That crash could jeopardize his chances in Milano-Sanremo a bit, yes. And I listened to Karsten Kroon last weekend and he was of the same opinion. Kroon corrected himself and said: 'That would have been the case with me anyway.'"