One of the knocks of road racing is that its boring. Professional cyclists ride side by side for 200 kilometers, then in the last 40kms, when the race is shown on “live” TV, that’s when the real race starts. What are the fans going to do in the first 160kms then?
In the professional cycling circuit, five one-day races are classified as “Monuments”. According to Wikipedia, “… Monuments are five classic bicycle races generally considered to be the oldest, hardest and most prestigious one-day events in men’s road cycling. In chronological order, they are 1- Milan-San Remo (Ita), 2- Tour of Flanders (Bel), 3- Paris-Roubaix (Fra), 4- Liege-Bastogne-Liege (Bel) and 5- Giro di Lombardia (Ita). Of the five, MSR is the longest at 294km, and if you include the neutral start, it’s more than 300+km, the longest race of all the UCI events.
There is no denying that even the most passionate fans of the sport turn their minds away 85% of the race. They only turn on their TV’s with about 40-35km to go. And that’s because that’s where the real action starts.
If you ride for 280km, just waiting for the last 20, you become complacent, and that’s what happens even to the best of them. Crashes are the most common if you are not concentrating enough. There are two climbs in the last 20km, the Cipressa, which is about 7km and then the Poggio, 3.7km long of hairpins going up and down. It’s not for the faint of heart. Approaching the Cipressa is chaotic since the teams want to position their stars at the front to avoid any problems. So imagine 25 teams of 7 riders per team, trying to squeeze on medieval roads designed for carts. Between the Cipressa and the Poggio, a 10k of flat roads, its like a sprint as again, the teams try to put their riders at the front for the last time. This means the chaos is multiplied!
And that is exactly what happened. The teams of the top 3 favorites- UAE for Tadej Pogacar, Alpecin for Matthiue Van Der Poel and Jumbo Visma for Wout van Aert were ready. A surprise team, Ineos, was also at the front, resting in the escape of the three riders and Ineos’s Pippo Ganna.
It was Pogacar who started the attack followed by Ganna. Van Aert was gapped a bit but was able to get back with van Der Poel, ominously, sitting behind him. With about 200 meters left in the 3.7 climb of the Poggio, MVDP attacked and his companions could only watch. MVDP had about 6 seconds on the top but still, the degree of difficulty if the descent was very high. Unlike last year’s winner, Matej Mahoric, who had a sketchy, if not, rough but daredevil descent, MVDP made it look like he was going down from Marco Polo and enjoying the view. He never made a single mistake, never looked hurried nor was he even close to slipping and sliding.
In the end, MVDP made history, winning 62 years after his Lolo, Raymond Poulidour, won the same race.
A 45 minute crit may be exciting but the waiting and the sense of uncertainty during the six and a half hour race is something different. It’s not called a monument for nothing.