UAE and Tim Wellens promise another attempt at winning Milano-Sanremo: "Next year we will come back to win"

UAE Team Emirates has pushed and ruled over Milano-Sanremo today, from all the pace forcing to attacking. They didn't succeed with their master plan however, and Tim Wellens admits there were problems that led to this.

"Did we start too early? I don't think so, but the problem is that we had already eaten up a lot of men for the Cipressa. The plan was to charge up the Cipressa with two riders, but there was only one and he fell a bit silent," Wellens said in words to VTM. UAE pushed up the Tre Capi, but entered out of position in the Cipressa. Some firepower was lacking when they wanted to keep a high pace all throughout the climb, and Wellens himself picked it up towards the summit.

The team only had two riders at the bottom of the Poggio, and Wellens was being saved for later in the ascent. "We should have gone a little faster to thin out the group for the Poggio. It was not the plan to increase the pace on the first of the three Capi. You have to be able to restrain yourself, but afterwards it is easy to talk," he admits. This ultimately meant that there was a limit to the damage one could do in the final climb, and Pogacar's attempts were not successful in creating the winning move.

Ultimately he fininshed third, whilst Wellens himself let the group go after giving it his all to make the race incredibly hard. However he admits that the team will most likely return, and try to make the race work in their way to perfection. "Milano-Sanremo is the most difficult Monument for Tadej to win. Every year he is close, next year we will come back to win," he concluded.