It's time for the first monument of the year and the longest race of the year - 298 km without the neutral start. Yes, boysngals, it's the Milano-San Remo weekend.
Legendary Danish poet, sports commentator, and film director of the Paris-Roubaix documentary A Sunday in Hell (1976) said it better than I could:
Milano-San Remo is a race where for the longest time nothing happens, and then - suddenly - everything happens!
He said it in Danish, of course, but you get the gist of it. If you watch this from start to finish - and I recommend it - you'll have time for a nap, a snack, and a board game while you wait for the riders to approach the final 70 kms at which point your pulse will slowly start to rise as the climbs start to come - Capo Mele, Capo Cervo, Capo Berta - steady breath - and then.... leading into the Cipressa, your mouth will start to go dry as the peloton fights like madmen to get their hopefuls into position for the climb and then POW, it's the finale and it lasts for the next ~25 kilometers and if you have a heart, I guarantee that you'll hit pulse 200 somewhere along the way.
So who'll win? Well - that's anyone's guess. Here are the PCS top competitors:
- POGAČAR Tadej
- DEL TORO Isaac
- PEDERSEN Mads
- VAN DER POEL Mathieu
- PIDCOCK Thomas
- MAGNIER Paul
- MCNULTY Brandon
- VAN AERT Wout
- BRENNAN Matthew
- ANDRESEN Tobias Lund
Please don't let it be Pogacar, though.
No offense taken! I just figured that it's grand if we have someone who watches the women's races and want to create race threads, I typically don't watch them these days, I even struggle to watch many of the men's races.