Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel and Filippo Ganna crack three decades old climbing record on Cipressa by more than 20 seconds
Cycling
The 2025 Milano-Sanremo was decided on Cipressa and it was for the first time in decades that the penultimate climb of La Primavera held such significance for the race outcome.
Nobody in their right sense would've attack on the Cipressa (5.6 km at 4.3%) - a climb the riders top with more than 20 kilometers to go. But the again, Tadej Pogacar is not afraid to venture on such adventure. Everyone knew what was up when the Slovenian ordered his teammates to absolutely smash the bottom slopes of Cipressa, yet only Mathieu van der Poel, Filippo Ganna (and briefly Romain Grégoire) could keep up with Slovenian's accelerations.
Obviously, the leading trio must've ridden up this climb pretty fast. How fast? Well, they've broken the revious record that stood for nearly three decades by more than twenty seconds.
Back in 1996, the duo Gabriele Colombo and Alexander Gontchenkov attacked away from peloton on the Cipressa, bridged to the breakaway that was still up on the road and ultimately fought it out for the victory.
Read also
hey look, an insinuating question from 2 years ago! I mean, sure, announcers mentioned tail wind, but whatever. That wasn't going to matter today, not with the 2 best classics riders of the past many generations (you have to go back to the 70s to see two people dominate like this, and even Merckx and de Vlaeminck never managed to win 2 each in the same year, the way Pogacar and Van der Poel have done in the past 2 years).
Two riders unlike any others over the past few decades, during this era of carb fueling, seems relevant to me.
So? Big news, 3 of the fastest riders ever after nicely warming up in Z2 for hours battle it out to the limit on a hill with tailwind and break a 20 year old record with far superior tech and methods, big deal. It happens in every sport, regularly. Nothing mysterious
Sorry, 30 years old. How many 30y old records are left in Athletics, 1, max 2 maybe
Also, can you be clearer about your Merckx point, don’t quite understand what you’re getting at since he won 3 monuments per year in 4 years, 3 consecutively, MSR 7 times, MVDP is the first in over 20 years to win it twice.
I'm coming to realize that answering your questions will just lead down a rabbit hole of debate. I'd rather avoid that, and instead celebrate the amazing things we see in front of us. Have a good day!
RiderHills...well said, the guy is a pain in the arse. He talks utter crap most of the time and off comment. Just ignore the sad little man.
To be clear, I won't comment on another person or try to change what they do, and I won't uses language like you just did. I can only determine what I do, and I'd like to spend my time celebrating the incredible riding we see and enjoy it as much as possible. I'm a fan, I'd rather be a fan in awe than one going into debates online.
Fine by me, was just trying to understand why you felt Tadej’s and MVDP’s 2 per year was more interesting than 3 and 1 or with the others thrown in the mix. Up to now results of the two eras are not very different but it may have been more interesting to compare the number of races where both actually CONFRONTED each other. I’m pretty sure TP and MVDP don’t have a hope in hell of offering nearly as much rivalry, many years the other 2 did 2 or 3 monuments together, in 1975 they even both did all 5! And that’s without counting classics. Compared to that it sure looks as if today’s riders try to avoid the others. You’re right to spend your time otherwise if you prefer I enjoy learning stuff from people with their personal view, whether I agree or not, debate is a great tool for that but obviously no longer fashionable in the age of Twitter where stating is more important than reasoning. Enjoy the racing/your rides, whatever.
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- I love listening to Geraint Thomas, he is such a great sportsman.awp26-03-2025
- Liege or Amstel are a little different. Only he knows what really works for him. I'm a bit disappointed that he is not going to focus on any other races potentially until the Dauphine. If you don't have race days in the legs no matter how good you are it generally gives a negative result. I had argued that he knew what works for him the other day but he seems to have maybe a mental block or is still a bit gun shy from last year's crash, which to be honest, was pretty bad. He might be in his last season or two. I hope not because he can still do quite a bit of winning if he gets his head right.awp26-03-2025
- Do you need a tissue since I seem to have offended you with my comment?frieders326-03-2025
- You mean Liege or Amstel or Flech doesn't play to his abilities ? That's a cop out !frieders326-03-2025
- He beat a field of second rate sprinters....yawn!frieders326-03-2025
- He didn't beat any top class sprinters in this race so slow the roll!frieders326-03-2025
- I think, sometimes, women's races are more interesting because of their unpredictability due to their silly mistakes. The most recent ones seem to always involve Demi Vollering against SD Worx. 11% is way too discriminative. Is there no guardrail in EU laws that prevent this sort of discrimination?
KerisVroom26-03-2025 - Good for him but not exactly the most competitive field, though better than what Froome would try ;-) Let’s wait and see if he can keep things up over time.Mistermaumau25-03-2025
- Huh? So when the men’s is boring and the women’s isn’t should they transfer money or how do you suggest to do things. Last I heard, it’s a bunch of mostly ageing chubby men who set the criteria for women’s races (and in most sports it’s still rather like how religions are run). Don’t think the girls are particularly against doing the same races as the men. Anyway, there’s a huge unjustified gap between 11% of and a difference of 11%. Doubt this happens at the Olympics.Mistermaumau25-03-2025
- C’mon, nobody has ever spoken of Ganna in the same breath as those two until a few months ago and he showed how close a thing it can be when he’s on form, nobody can know in advance what form Remco will have, his Olympic form would cause even Tadej problems, and Wout, well, we’ll just have to wait and see but you can’t really write him off in advance.Mistermaumau25-03-2025