Tadej Pogačar is a favourite for Milan-San Remo but how can the Slovenian win La Classicissima on Saturday? It is the question that is surely keeping the UAE Team Emirates directeur sportif awake at night this week and perhaps even perturbing Pogačar himself.
Pogačar is one, if not 'the' strongest and most aggressive rider in the sport as he showed with his 80km solo attack to win Strade Bianche. However, he is not the fastest finisher in a sprint, so he needs a carefully crafted and perfectly executed tactical plan if he is to win on Saturday.
Against the likes of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), the Slovenian has little chance in a sprint finish in the Via Roma.
Pogačar needs a harder, more aggressive race, perhaps starting with an attack on the Cipressa with a small group or at least a split in the peloton, before attacking again on the Poggio and riding to a solo victory. It's an easy plan to put in words but much harder to execute out on the road with so many rivals and with so many variables.
"I'm excited for Milan-San Remo. The finish is not too far from where I live in Monaco so I know the last part of the race and the final climbs quite well," he said when UAE Team Emirates named their squad for the race, perhaps hinting at some kind of attacking race strategy.
"As we've seen before, this race is one of the most difficult to win and can end in many outcomes. For sure we will make a plan and put ourselves in the best position possible. It's a race we'd dearly love to win."
The UAE Team Emirates line-up also includes Alessandro Covi, Marc Hirschi, Brandon McNulty, Domen Novak, Diego Ulissi and Tim Wellens, indicating the team is ready to create a hard race and set up Pogačar.
Get unlimited access to all of our coverage of the Spring Classics- including reporting, breaking news and analysis from Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and more. Find out more.
The many ways to win Milan-San Remo
This year's Milan-San Remo is the 115th edition of the Italian race, with many of the best riders in the history of the sport on the long Roll of Honour. Each won the race in their own way, each a slight variation on the ten different ways to win Milan-San Remo highlighted by a special Cyclingnews feature.
The Poggio attackers appear to now dominate and have stolen the limelight from the sprinters, with Arnaud Démare the last to win from a huge group in 2016. But anything can happen in the most thrilling 30 km of racing of the season, just ask Matej Mohorič. He attacked on the descent of the Poggio in 2021, using a dropper seatpost to go away from his rivals.
The 2024 race seems set to be a classic edition, with warm, spring-like weather and only a slight breeze on the coast forecast. Saturday will not be like the 2014 race when snow left the riders freezing cold and forced them to cover part of the race in their team buses.
This year's race starts in Pavia, 30 km south of central Milan but still covers 288 km (plus a 5.7 km neutralised transfer out of the city), with a ride east to San Zenone al Po, the birthplace of legendary Italian sports journalist Gianni Brera.
The rest of the race is the same as tradition, with the long but gradual Passo del Turchino starting after 114 km on the Lombardy plains.
After the fastest descent to the Ligurian coast west of Genoa, the riders face a further 90km of flat, fast roads to the start of the short Capi coastal climbs. The Cipressa starts after 260 km of racing, with just 27 to race until the Via Roma finish in central San Remo.
The Cipressa climb winds up into the olive groves for 5.6km long from San Lorenzo al Mare, at an average gradient of 4.1%. The final kilometre of the Cipressa is on a false flat until the squeeze past the chapel and the descent to the coast.
There are just 13 kilometres between the top of the Cipressa to the start of the Poggio climb, which is just 10km from the finish.
The iconic Poggio is 3.6 km long at an average of 3.7% but twists and turns up the hillside between the San Remo greenhouse full of flowers.
The hairpins offer places to accelerate away and positioning is decisive before the first attacks come in the final two kilometres of the climb.
Riders once jumped away early, into the slipstream of the many photographers' motorbikes. Now the number of motorbikes has been reduced and so the steepest point at 8%, with a kilometre to the summit, and just over six kilometres to the finish, is the best point to attack.
Pogačar can't repeat his mistakes of 2023
Last year UAE Team Emirates took control of the race on the Cipressa, setting a high pace with Felix Grobschartner and Diego Ulissi to hurt the sprinters and reduce the peloton to just 50 riders.
On the Poggio, Tim Wellens soon hit the front, with Pogačar on his wheel and lined out the peloton. The Slovenian attacked with a double surge, as Matteo Trentin let a gap go, ending the hopes of any riders behind him.
Pogačar made his attack with 6.6km to race, surging away on the steepest point of the Poggio. He was joined by Filippa Ganna, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, the Dutchman wisely using his rivals to close the gap as Pogacar went deep on the front. Van de Poel surged then away with his own attack and stayed away on the descent to win alone in the Via Roma. Ganna beat Pogačar and Van Aert in the sprint for second.
Pogačar knows he will need to employ a different, less generous tactic if he is to win this year's Milan-San Remo. But which one suits his ability and talents the best? Which tactic gives him the best chase of victory if he is not fast enough to wait for a small-group sprint finish?
An attack on the Passo del Turchino seems impossible in modern-day cycling. Pogačar perhaps needs to hurt or distance his rivals on the Cipressa but a solo attack would have little chance of staying away with so many domestiques still in the peloton ready to lead the chase along the coast at 60km/h.
Pogačar would need to go clear with a select, quality group of attackers on the Cipressa, who share his ambitions and courage and are willing to work with him.
The last time an attack on Cipressa stayed away was in 1996 when Gabriele Colombo and Alexander Gontchenkov attacked and were joined on the descent by Max Sciandri and Michele Coppolillo. They worked together as the chase hesitated and they managed to stay away, with Colombo attacking after the Poggio to win alone.
Gianni Bugno won alone over the Cipressa after crosswinds split the peloton but that was at the start of the 90s when he went on to lead the Giro d'Italia from start to finish. Marco Pantani made a flamboyant solo attack on the Cipressa in 1999 and other riders have tried to emulate him since then but the flat road along the coast to the Poggio has always led to a regrouping.
Could Pogačar somehow rewrite the modern Milan-San Remo script?
"If Pogačar goes hard on the Cipressa, few riders have the power to go with him. He's like Bugno, he can win the Tour de France but also the Tour of Flanders," Sciandri told Cyclingnews.
'However, even he would be crazy to go away alone on Cipressa, I think even he knows that. But if a small group forms around him like it did in 1996, then they could, in theory, stay away. It all depends on the mix of the riders, if people will work with Pogačar, the wind direction on the coast, and which teams don't have riders in the move and are willing to chase before the Poggio."
Pogačar could try to attack on the Cipressa but will need the intelligence to ease up if it's not a winning move. Then he would have to switch to Plan B, try to recover from his effort and wait for the Poggio.
However, Pogačar will be just one of several possible attackers over the final climb that overlooks San Remo and so often decides the race.
Van der Poel, Girmay, Pedersen, Ganna, Laporte, Mohorič, Alberto Bettiol, Toms Skujiņš, Michael Matthews and Tom Pidcock, could be able to stay with Pogačar on the Poggio. Some fast finishers like Jonathan Milan, Corbin Strong, Olav Kooij, and Jasper Philipsen could also be close if the attackers hesitate on the slopes and the descent of the Poggio.
Pogačar's race could be over if a big group goes over the top of the Poggio within a few seconds. Then the fast finishers would have the upper hand.
"Pogačar has to have a day of grace like Vincenzo Nibali did in 2017, when he attacked over the top of the Poggio and held off the chasers," Alessandro Petacchi, who won Milan-San Remo in 2005 with a superb sprint, recently told BiciPro.
"The wind on the coast will be a key element like always. If it's a headwind, then it's easy to stay on the wheels on the Cipressa. If there's no wind then there could be more of a selection. Pogačar's biggest problem will be Mathieu van der Poel. How does he get rid of a guy like that?"
Van der Poel punished Pogačar's generous work on the Poggio last year, sitting in his slipstream before then powering past him in the final metres of the climb.
"Pogačar was a bit presumptuous last year. If there are riders as strong as you, you can't think you can drop them from the front, you have to race smarter," former Classics winner Michele Bartoli told BiciPro.
"If Pogačar wants to win this year's Milan-San Remo, he needs his team to make it a hard race, especially on the Cipressa, then make one big attack on the steepest part of the Poggio and go clear alone. That's how he can get away and win."
