Attacks, descents and orgasms: Mathieu van der Poel wins Milan-San Remo

The San Remo arrives, and it is always special. Why is the season starting? (that big, big season), because it takes a few hours looking at beautiful landscapes, because it brings together, every year, seconds that are among the best, among those that appear in each video posted the last week of December. The San Remo has these issues… the climactic moment does not last long, but This culminating moment is, without a doubt, the most intense. It is, yes, pedal orgasm.

The San Remo arrives, and the San Remo does not change, the San Remo is the San Remo, you know the route of the San Remo perfectly, because the Classics (with capital letters) must be classics, and because that title (Milan-San Remo) is always going to be bigger than any map or altimetry. San Remo arrives, in March, and here we have one of the great objectives in terms of bikes. Milan-San Remo arrives and, damn, what do you want, listen, that this from Milan-San Remo arrived.

Do they ask me? Well look, I was sorry, above all, to see Tadej Pogacar. To Tadej Pogacar destroying the matter from afarto Tadej Pogačar to attack with everything here and there, to look for the impossible, because it is impossible (it was impossible until Tadej Pogacar, it was impossible since Eddy Merckx) than the great favorite for La Grande Boucle (Vingegaard through) be also a favorite on Via Roma, that there are not two more different races (or yes, but Roubaix is ​​for another year), that it is almost sacrilege to think about possibilities and winners. It happens that the uncle wants (and wanting is very important, ask Valverde), and that the uncle can (and power is also very important, ask José Joaquín Rojas), so the castle of fires was insured. That it served to illuminate the night or was it just a “come on, don’t fuck with me, is this what my taxes spend? ” it is already a thing of the Slovenian, and of a few others.

The Van der Poel Show

From “the kooks”. Los locos are a group of rustlers who were jailed for a crime they never committed, and who are now fugitives from justice (but fugitives in a fugitive-fugitive plan, not a fugitive “Contador Giro 2011” roll) and are dedicated to shaking gurt little races like soldiers of fortune, if you have a World Tour event with fun problems and you find them maybe you can hire them. Approximately, I have mixed issues as well. Well, that, that Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock above all. Let’s see, Biniam Girmay also enters here, but only because he always goes to Van der Poel’s wheel, we must mention them together. But to propose, what is said to propose… do not bet on Girmay. I think more of a getaway with Rui Costa pulling all his compis…

And that, that the crackpots. Only that crazy, what is said crazy … because van der Poel. And Mathieu does not turn here as much as in other places. He can propose, because that’s what van der Poel is for, but he’s usually waiting. Of course, when he proposes … he really proposes, so a favorite. Van Aert is a relentless machine when he is out of his territory (he is a relentless machine at the Hors Catégorie in July) but For classics, he usually runs with more doubts than Eloy Olaya from eleven meters And Pidcock couldn’t even get out, because he’s fallen twice these days and he had a minor concussion. Any balloonist from three to four would have signed up for his cycling tour, because I’ve been preparing it for three months, man, all this work to hell, but the pros are smarter and don’t risk greater evils. I wish we would learn.

Well, okay, then there are the Matej Mohorič (don’t chase him if Poggio jumps below), or Laporte himself (who tends to be less eager to work for van Aert than I am to train in the rain), or Alaphilippe (although Alaphilippe hasn’t been Alaphilippe for quite some time)or Magnus Cort Nielsen (he is not a favourite, but he is dangerous, especially at night, because he has a mustache enough to star in three or four seventies films with tormented and badass cops), or Démare (who is less favorite when they focus all the time on him). time), or Kwiatkowski (yes, keep going), or Sagan (yes, keep going, even if it happens). Also write down two of your own bets… Caleb Ewan, because he has a feeling with San Remo (the necessary one to overcome this Poggio climbing less than my father, insufficient to prevail at the end) or Mads Pedersen, who is a beast, who is “the worse, the better”, who is the northernmost Flemish that I have met, Mads Pedersen who draws well-selected awards after that surprising rainbow. That Mads Pedersen. It wasn’t this year, but remember…will win on Via Roma.

No news from the Spanish

The Spanish? Fine, thanks. Posting things on social networks, that a good day has come out in Arcalís. So… on the run. Milan-San Remo is usually easy to count for six and a half horucas, and frantic in ten thousand meters. Unless Chiapucci runs, wow, but today Chiapucci didn’t runso the classic script… Seasonal getaway, pleasant sun, zero worries behind, kilometers that add up and bite, although it seems that they only serve to pass the time. Forty and all the good ones in front (except Cavendish, former winner here, but Cavendish has more ass than Kim Kardashian after the torrezno fair). So… start over. Nerves, rhythm, falls. Start over again, although with more distance on top than in the longest stage of any Grande. And that adds up, damn it, wow it adds up… Little less than a prologue, if you want, but the longest prologue of all time, the prologue that Stephen King would have signed for you, the prologue that Pérez-Reverte writes saying a lot of “cojones” and “nanaza”. That, prologue.

And then the Cipressa. That the matter becomes interesting, in the Cipressa. One of the few things that I can make Tadej Pogacar ugly is that he does not use the team properly. That, hey, sometimes he doesn’t even have equipment to use in the wrong way, so I’m not going to prime myself either, but here… Throw, throw and clean everything you can. And that they do. Gesture of the boy with his eyebrows (he’s a purparlé, this would be more than talked about for weeks) and everyone with everything for everything. People endure with (certain) solvency, but some also suffer, and the important thing is to be constant, man, be constant. Indian row, whip, drop, nerves, van der Poel in the lead, van der Poel who seems to be testing downhillIt’s not going to be that we arrive at the Poggio without knowing how the bike is going, van der Poel pulling the brakes, van der Poel smiling, all good, you, all good, I think I can speed up the curves later. It hasn’t been an apocalypse either, but it helps us get excited, because at the beginning of the season we got really excited…

Ten kilometers, a thousand cyclists in the lead, feeling that the matter is a little less than what they had told us, that the Poggio is going to stress even to take placeHow gregarious is a bad image. Ten kilometers and that tingling in the belly (they don’t even have it), that Spring resolution, that Classicissima coming to the end. Ten kilometers, and nothing. ten kilometers, and everything. The most intense quarter of an hour of the year (unless you are a cyclist influencer… then you still have to lose your virginity these months, and you will have a better memory). The Poggio starts and shoots Andrea Pasqualon, who is a gregarious with the shoulders of a journalist and a name a-co-jo-nan-te, and here we bank on these little details a lot. Anyway, it’s not what was in previous scripts, but… it’s coming, it’s coming. It has to come, right? You guys are screwing up the chronicle, youngsters.

And if. horseshoe bend, a domestique from Pogacar, criminal whiplashTadej with a wheel, van der Poel with a wheel, Mohorič with a wheel, all with a wheel, but in one of those single lines that measure 214 kilometers, and a cut is made, and eight enter, and all the good guys are there, and Filippo Ganna It’s beautiful to see Filippo Ganna on the bike, and Pogacar attacks with everything, and only Filippo holds him back (who looks like his old man, who looks like Eros Poli next to Martín Farfán), and then van Aert comes in, and van der Poel, and van der Poel attacks just before the crest, and opens a gap, and it looks goodit seems good, take the curve to the left, the curve where there is a telephone booth (darling?, yes, look, I’m going to risk my skin going down, give the children little kisses, I love you, a hug, beep, beep ), descends better than anyone, it’s good, it can be good, it’s good, it can be good. They chase Wout, Filippo, Tadej, they chase downhill, which is chasing less, which is chasing with what you can. What a thrill, man, I don’t even remember what a pest this was until twenty minutes ago…

These are the turns where sanding is done the most throughout the year. Where you overturn the bike the most, where you take the most risks. Final, two kilometers, seven, eight seconds. Van der Poel has it. Van der Poel, who won the Cx World Championship, van der Poel, who had been on the road for a season backfiring more than a sixty-seven Bultaco. Van der Poel, persona non grata in Australia, or something like that. The three of them take over, they take over, but the first one always has more conviction, he doesn’t look askance, he doesn’t doubt. The first is flying, because he sees the glory in the backgroundand those behind see the glory, yes, but also their companions, and there is no way, there is no way.

Has it. Van der Poel wins, just like his grandfather won here in 1961, there where his father could never lash anything. Van der Poel wins. Second Filippo, then van Aert and Pogacar. It has been a curious exhibition. One of those that are not forgotten. Little time, but… perfect. Attack where it should be (where Laurent Fignon, where Maurizio Fondriest), ma-ra-vi-llo-sa squad in that little town called Poggio, convinced descent, power on the plane so short that there is at the end. A curious exhibition, one of the best that has been seen around here in years. What a strange afternoon, yes with van der Poel doing everything (everything) perfectly, in its time, in its place. Pogacar must wait at least twelve months. For Mathieu, the seventy most exciting days that you can imagine begin. He paints a season thick, he paints that season Classics will be (will be again) that wonderful place where to enjoy with the bikes.

It looks like we’re going to have a good time.