Racing<\/p>\n
Dane will draw on all of his experience at La Primavera<\/p>\n
March 20, 2026<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s win at Tirreno-Adriatico was one of the highlights of Michael Valgren\u2019s storied career.<\/p>\n
Five years after his last victory and four years on from the career-threatening crash<\/a> in which he fractured his pelvis and ruptured his ACL, his MCL, and his meniscus, Michael <\/a>crossed the finish line in Mombaroccio with his arms in the air <\/a>as he always believed he could. The way he attacked the final climb, a 4.2-kilometer ramp with double-digit slopes, and held off the charging peloton showed that the former Omloop Nieuwsblad and Amstel Gold winner is back to his best.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just awesome,\u201d Michael said. \u201cThe way the course was, you would never have bet on me in a million years if you looked at that profile. The way I rode it makes the win extra special.\u201d<\/p>\n Tirreno-Adriatico was just the second race of Michael\u2019s 2026 season. He spent the winter at home in Denmark with his family, taking care of their newborn son with his wife. Training on wet, windswept roads around \u00d8sterild, he worked through the cold and dreary months, dreaming of spring in Italy.<\/p>\n His focus now is on Milano-Sanremo<\/a> \u2014 La Primavera \u2014 the 300-kilometer Monument that descends from Lombardy to the Riviera dei Fiori. After a long prelude through the Po Valley, the race crosses the Turchino Pass and drops down to the Ligurian Sea, where it hits the Capos Cervo, Berta, and Mele, before coming to a crescendo up the iconic climbs of the Cipressa and the Poggio. Michael\u2019s ride at Tirreno gave him confidence that he can pass the race\u2019s decisive tests.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is always nice to come off a win. You know the form is there and the shape is really good,\u201d Michael said. \u201cGoing into Milano-Sanremo, I have high hopes. I really hope that I can nail it, because then with the legs I have now, I think the fight for the podium is quite realistic. That\u2019s my ambition \u2014 to be in the fight for the podium spot. To pull that off is going to be really difficult, but I think it\u2019s realistic. At Tirreno, the climb was a double-digit gradient, while the Cipressa and the Poggio are just around four or five percent. That requires more high-speed power, which is good because it means there is more draft. Basically, it’s harder for the best guys to ride away. The watts I did at Tirreno are going to be pretty much the same as what I will need to do at Sanremo. Hopefully, I can just keep my 500-and-something for 10 minutes, and I should be there in the finale.\u201d<\/p>\n To do his best in the crucial final kilometers of Milano-Sanremo, Michael will draw on all of the experience he has gained from doing the race earlier in his career. This will be the seventh time he has raced the Italian spring Monument.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is really going to help that I’ve done the race quite a few times,\u201d Michael said. \u201cIt’s a really long race. You can’t just sit in at the beginning and talk to your mates and not be concentrated, because you might spend stupid energy which you just can\u2019t afford to lose, because it’s such a long race. Even though it’s not long in time, it’s long in kilometers. And something happens when you pass 250 kilometers, almost no matter how easily you’ve been riding all day. Your legs can feel like jelly or you’re just on your game. You have to be smart. You stop to pee when the peloton stops for a pee and keep fueling all day. You need to stay out of the wind, stay behind big guys in the peloton, because there can sometimes be a little bit of a crosswind near the beginning south of Milano. It is really important to stay behind those big guys and get that extra draft and protection. There are all these small things that you can do throughout the day that really add up. You save, save, save, and then when you have to hit it, you hit it hard.\u201d<\/p>\n The best power in the peloton won\u2019t help if you hit the bottom of the Cipressa or the Poggio at the back of the pack, though. Coming into those climbs with the first riders is crucial. Michael has been doing his homework.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I know where to move up before those two really important climbs,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the past, I tried to go on the inside of one roundabout and then the outside. Just looking from videos, I think I found a really good path to get through that fight for position, which I think is going to be the key. Obviously, you then need legs. But positioning is 100 percent going to be key.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael won\u2019t have to do it alone on Saturday. Kasper Asgreen<\/a>, Mikkel Honor\u00e9<\/a>, Madis Mihkels<\/a>, Alastair MacKellar<\/a>, Luke Lamperti,<\/a> and Harry Sweeny<\/a> will be there to share the work in the wind and navigate the surging pack during the run-ups to the key climbs. Depending on how the race plays out, EF Education-EasyPost could play a number of cards at this year\u2019s Milano-Sanremo.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a super strong team,\u201d Michael said. \u201cGuys like Kasper and Harry could also ride the finale if they are on a top day. We\u2019ll have to communicate a lot about how we’re feeling and just be honest. Maybe I won\u2019t feel great on the Capos and we will have to adjust, so I do the lead-out for Harry or for Kasper or whatever. Luke is going really well. If he can come over the Poggio in a group that catches the attackers, he can go for the sprint. I think there\u2019s a realistic chance for him to finish on the podium if he rides the perfect race.\u201d<\/p>\n If Michael is the one who makes it over the Poggio and into the dash down the descent to Sanremo, he has already visualized how it would best play out.<\/p>\n \u201cI have my ideas of how I want to do the finale,\u201d Michael said. \u201cI was really unlucky when I did it back with the team in 2022. We were with only eight or nine guys over the Poggio. It was the year that Matej Mohori\u010d went away on the downhill. I was in the first group, but then I had a mechanical on the descent. My chain fell off, so I never really got to make my move at the bottom. If we are in a group of 10, 15, or 20 riders in a line coming down the Poggio, I’m not going to sprint against those guys, because there are going to be like five guys there who are faster than me. There is that flat section where everybody stops and looks at each other just for a little bit of a second. That\u2019s where I have to move.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the dream scenario, but anything can happen at Milano-Sanremo. That\u2019s what makes La Primavera such a wonderful race.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, the distance is what everybody talks about,\u201d Michael said. \u201cWhen you say Milano-Sanremo, everyone goes, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s the super long one.\u2019 And it is, but as everyone also says, it\u2019s the easiest one to finish, but the hardest one to win. I agree with that 100 percent. That\u2019s the beauty of it. There are so many possible scenarios and so many riders who could win. There are the favorites, but you don\u2019t really know who is going to be on top of that podium until the end of the day. It\u2019s a really open, special race, which I think is good for cycling. We need some more unpredictable races.\u201d<\/p>\n If there is one thing we have learned about Michael Valgren, it\u2019s that he is good at defying the odds. Don\u2019t be surprised if you see him charging over the top of the Poggio in the race for the win on Saturday. <\/p>\n Sign up for our newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Racing Dane will draw on all of his experience at La Primavera March 20, 2026 Last week\u2019s win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-555788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}