107th Milano - Sanremo, 19th March 2016, 291 km, WT

[Bushman]

The last few kilometers were exciting, but WTF was wrong with everyone on the Poggio?
Cancellara? Didnt attack. Van Avermaet? Didnt attack. Nibali? Didnt attack (except you saw that short stretching of legs as an attack). Valverde? Didnt attack. Sagan? Didnt attack.
The only thing all these guys did was to bring the only attack of the Poggio back, doing a perfect leadout for the sprinters who were behind and probably wouldnt have had a chance if they had to chase Kwiatkowski.

Right, but how many of those riders were up there competing for the win before Gaviria crashed? Sagan, GVA, Cancellara was, Nibali tried several times earlier. Maybe the smartest tactic is not to attack on the Poggio and these guys know it

 

[LaFlorecita]

Big cheer for Demare but tears for Gaviria

 

[Arredondo]

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

 

[Tank Engine]

I thought Gaviria had it the bag. It was a bizarre race, with Demare first having bad luck, but that shifted at the end. It was a really classy ride though to even give himself a chance, even though the racing up the Poggio was pretty subdued.

At last, Sky played their cards pretty well in a monument (a fairly strong hand all round, with nothing outstanding) and were not far from winning.

 

[Gigs_98]

The last few kilometers were exciting, but WTF was wrong with everyone on the Poggio?
Cancellara? Didnt attack. Van Avermaet? Didnt attack. Nibali? Didnt attack (except you saw that short stretching of legs as an attack). Valverde? Didnt attack. Sagan? Didnt attack.
The only thing all these guys did was to bring the only attack of the Poggio back, doing a perfect leadout for the sprinters who were behind and probably wouldnt have had a chance if they had to chase Kwiatkowski.

Yeah, it's frustraing. I guess that its just very, very difficult for a puncheur to win this race. The Poggio is so easy, that sprinters will have enough team-mates to pace them back in the last few km.

You would need someone like Cancellara or Sagan to basically sacrifice themselves on the flat to keep a select group clear. And no-one's going to do that.

With good weather, anything other than a sprinter winning would be a major upset.

What I don't get is:
a) Why didnt one of the teams set a high pace on the first half of the Poggio. They all soft pedaled their way up their letting Katusha set a low pace and don't do anything. Even on the Cipressa they tried to make the race hard but then it seemed as if they all gave up
b) After Kwiat attacked I really thought for a second that he could make it because I though nobody would want to work on the descent except maybe Sagan, but no. Even Nibali tried to bring back Kwiatkowski although he already knew that he has lost the race. Maybe you can argue that it was an attack, but if you have descenders like Cancellara and Sagan on your wheel you can't really expect to drop them without doing a good acceleration first. The only thing the riders at the front of the peloton did on the descent was to help the sprinters. Of course I know thats not what they wanted by riding a fast descent but its what they did and in my opinion thats just stupidity. Let the sprinters come to the front and let them chase and then try to attack them on the flat (as Cancellara) or wait for a sprint (as Sagan)

 

[Tonton]

Re:

Fdj killing it in TT, winning MSR, what's next, Tour de France?

Yes please !

Why can't some here be happy for Demare? Gaviria coudda, Bouhanni Shoudda, rubbish. Demare's sprint was disrupted by the fall, he put up a monster effort, he was the strongest: period. Overrated? What ? What's next? He was sucking wheels?

 

[damian13ster]

Re:

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

I think it still needs one more climb, even if 30-40km from the finish. Should be a bit more selective than that. Today you could see a smaller group if teams rode more aggresively, but ultimately you would still have 20+ potential winners on top of Poggio. Today a Kittel could have won it

 

[Arredondo]

Re: Re:

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

I think it still needs one more climb, even if 30-40km from the finish. Should be a bit more selective than that. Today you could see a smaller group if teams rode more aggresively, but ultimately you would still have 20+ potential winners on top of Poggio. Today a Kittel could have won it

Kittel can't win MSR. No matter how hard/easy it is. He would have rode a smiliar race like Cav did today.

 

[TMP402]

Re:

Pozzato proved he's not dead after all..

Nor Haussler.

 

[jaylew]

Re: Re:

What happened to Bouhanni at the end. Did he give up or have a gear problem? Worst possible winner for me.

Lighten up. It's only a cycling race.

You're kidding, right? I just pointed out that the rider I'd least like to see win, won. That's it. I'm not on suicide watch. I'm not having a tantrum. I'm not going to post about it for days on end. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my day. There's really nothing to "lighten up" about.

Fwiw, Bling can't complain too much as Demare was caught up in the crash with him. You certainly gotta give him credit for winning after that.

If Demare is indeed the rider you least like to see win, then you do need to lighten up.

Well, that makes absolutely no sense.

We like who we like and dislike who we dislike. What seems rational to one person seems irrational to another. I meant specifically for today's race, btw.

 

[SKSemtex]

Sagan played it perfectly this time. GAV just F...d his chance.

 

[RedheadDane]

Re: Re:

Fdj killing it in TT, winning MSR, what's next, Tour de France?

Yes please !

Why can't some here be happy for Demare? Gaviria coudda, Bouhanni Shoudda, rubbish. Demare's sprint was disrupted by the fall, he put up a monster effort, he was the strongest: period. Overrated? What ? What's next? He was sucking wheels?

Demare's win was awesome!

Sure, Gaviria could probably have won, but - well - he didn't.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

I think it still needs one more climb, even if 30-40km from the finish. Should be a bit more selective than that. Today you could see a smaller group if teams rode more aggresively, but ultimately you would still have 20+ potential winners on top of Poggio. Today a Kittel could have won it

Well for Kittel even Capo Mele would already be too much but generally you are right. Using one more climb doesnt mean the race gets impossible to win for sprinters but it gets harder and in the last years the Poggio wasnt enough to eliminate any of the favorites (I don't count Cav as a favorite anymore). La Manie is perfect. It makes the race only slightly harder but this little bit is the perfect amount of difficulty we need to make this race interesting again.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

Of course a monument should be selective, because they're the biggest one-day races of the year. If it wasn't selective, being there to contest the victory wouldn't be as much of an achievement, and the value of the victory to the palmarès would suffer.

It's fine for the time being, but the idea is that we should have a race where the sprinters CAN win a monument, but they've got to be strong enough to earn it. Just like Lombardia for the climbers - we don't have a pure mountain monument; a climber can win - and indeed on many occasions has won - Lombardia, but they can't be one-dimensional because there's more needed. Sanremo is the one monument a relatively pure sprinter can win (as opposed to a more all-round sprinting rider like Degenkolb or Kristoff) but somebody like Cavendish had to do something well out of his comfort zone to make it to the end there, which is why it's a much bigger achievement in his palmarès to have won Milano-Sanremo than to have won the World Championships on the awful Copenhagen course.

 

[staubsauger]

Re:

Big cheer for Demare but tears for Gaviria

He's gonna come back certainly. That he even was still in contention is somehow impressive.

Demare finally proves his early laurels ain't been for nothing! At the Giro he might very well confirm this.

Too bad for Bouhanni, too bad.

The comeback of Pippo might become an important side note. Maybe he's ready for the pavé!?

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Re:

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

I think what people want is one more hill to knock out the 5th Katusha rider from the Poggio, rather than knocking Demare from the finish. Doesn't matter that a sprinter wins it, but the difficulty for an attacker to escape the control of sprinters' teams

 

[hfer07]

Sagan played it perfectly this time. GAV just F...d his chance.

naahh - Peter would have lost against GVA anyways

 

[luckyboy]

Sagan was on Swift's wheel right after they both avoided Gaviria and then seemed to give up. Odd

 

[Arredondo]

Re: Re:

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

Of course a monument should be selective, because they're the biggest one-day races of the year. If it wasn't selective, being there to contest the victory wouldn't be as much of an achievement, and the value of the victory to the palmarès would suffer.

It's fine for the time being, but the idea is that we should have a race where the sprinters CAN win a monument, but they've got to be strong enough to earn it. Just like Lombardia for the climbers - we don't have a pure mountain monument; a climber can win - and indeed on many occasions has won - Lombardia, but they can't be one-dimensional because there's more needed. Sanremo is the one monument a relatively pure sprinter can win (as opposed to a more all-round sprinting rider like Degenkolb or Kristoff) but somebody like Cavendish had to do something well out of his comfort zone to make it to the end there, which is why it's a much bigger achievement in his palmarès to have won Milano-Sanremo than to have won the World Championships on the awful Copenhagen course.

But look at the sprinters who were left today, there all riders who can handle different kind of parcours well, with Swift, Demare, Bouhanni, Sagan and Gaviria. Despite an easy race because the sprinters teams were too strong, the weather was too good and the guys who had to attack were holding back, pure sprinters like Cav, Boonen, Modolo, Mareczko al were dropped. That means MSR is normally a race which is too hard for the pure sprinters.

And have in mind that this year's edition was the easiest of the last 10 years, or almost. Most of the time it's possible that a small group attacks on the Poggio and managed to stay away. Or that a really strong allrounder can jump away to victory, like Cancellara or Pozzato did in the past.

If this race would be a big peloton sprint of 100 guys every year, i agree with you. But that's not the case.

 

[jaylew]

Sagan played it perfectly this time. GAV just F...d his chance.

I was wondering about that. Which rider's chances were ruined by the crash (other than Gaviria's)? You never know what would have actually happened, but it sure looked like he had it in the bag...

Where's the guy who was arguing Cav had a much better chance than Gav and everyone was overrating his chances

And speaking of the crash, I've watched it a bunch and I can't tell what happened. I thought Gav looked back before the crash but he didn't. I can't tell why he went down at all and who caused it.

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Gaviria has no-one to blame but himself. In the finale of very long races, keeping one's focus sharp is just as important as keeping one's legs "fresh".

 

[Bushman]

Re: Re:

Fdj killing it in TT, winning MSR, what's next, Tour de France?

Yes please !

Why can't some here be happy for Demare? Gaviria coudda, Bouhanni Shoudda, rubbish. Demare's sprint was disrupted by the fall, he put up a monster effort, he was the strongest: period. Overrated? What ? What's next? He was sucking wheels?

It was indeed a really inpressive win, powerful sprint he rode. But you cant deny the fact that the same riders (Demare, Swift) wouldnt have contested for the win if not for the crash. I had really been hoping for Sagan to end his monument drought (if not for Cancellara) and he rode the perfect race I think so I'm a bit pissed that the crash screwed his chances.

 

[Jagartrott]

Still only top-10 at procyclingstats. Why does it take so long?

 

[jaylew]

Re:

Gaviria has no-one to blame but himself. In the finale of very long races, keeping one's focus sharp is just as important as keeping one's legs "fresh".

Possibly, but we really don't know for sure what caused the crash. It could have been completely his fault, partially his fault, or not his fault at all. Often it's somewhere in between but I've watched the replay a bunch and you can't tell...I'm sure we'll hear what happened.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

Why should every race be selective? We have LBL and Lombardia for climbers/puncheurs, Flanders and Roubaix for the cobble riders and MSR for sprinters/some really strong or fast puncheurs.

I like San Remo as it is now. Most of the time a sprint, but sometimes a puncheur (Cancellara) or a small group fighting for the win (Ciolek, Goss)

Of course a monument should be selective, because they're the biggest one-day races of the year. If it wasn't selective, being there to contest the victory wouldn't be as much of an achievement, and the value of the victory to the palmarès would suffer.

It's fine for the time being, but the idea is that we should have a race where the sprinters CAN win a monument, but they've got to be strong enough to earn it. Just like Lombardia for the climbers - we don't have a pure mountain monument; a climber can win - and indeed on many occasions has won - Lombardia, but they can't be one-dimensional because there's more needed. Sanremo is the one monument a relatively pure sprinter can win (as opposed to a more all-round sprinting rider like Degenkolb or Kristoff) but somebody like Cavendish had to do something well out of his comfort zone to make it to the end there, which is why it's a much bigger achievement in his palmarès to have won Milano-Sanremo than to have won the World Championships on the awful Copenhagen course.

But look at the sprinters who were left today, there all riders who can handle different kind of parcours well, with Swift, Demare, Bouhanni, Sagan and Gaviria. Despite an easy race because the sprinters teams were too strong, the weather was too good and the guys who had to attack were holding back, pure sprinters like Cav, Boonen, Modolo, Mareczko al were dropped. That means MSR is normally a race which is too hard for the pure sprinters.

And have in mind that this year's edition was the easiest of the last 10 years, or almost. Most of the time it's possible that a small group attacks on the Poggio and managed to stay away. Or that a really strong allrounder can jump away to victory, like Cancellara or Pozzato did in the past.

If this race would be a big peloton sprint of 100 guys every year, i agree with you. But that's not the case.

The question was "why should every race be selective?" - our quibble is just over how selective.

I don't mind Sanremo as it is now, some years the bunch goes easier than others. Ideally the bunch for me should be around 25-30 at the end, so if sprinters have helpers there's only one or possibly two if they're lucky, which means controlling the attacks at the end is difficult enough and the sprint at the end is by those sprinters who've proven themselves worthy of winning a monument by surviving it. At the moment, we have that, just in varying quantities year on year. This was a relatively tepid year. It always tends to happen as riders adjust to the new parcours, see what happened in Paris-Tours as well, for a couple of years the sprinters were well out of it, then once they got used to the new parcours and where people made the moves and changed the pace, they were able to get back to controlling it. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the parcours, they just need to be mindful if there are too many editions where riders have four or five helpers coming to the Poggio.