{"id":575615,"date":"2026-03-31T04:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/575615\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:45:22","slug":"pogacar-won-milan-sanremo-on-a-damaged-frame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/575615\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar won Milan-Sanremo on a damaged frame"},"content":{"rendered":"

That Milan-Sanremo will go down as one of the most impressive victories of Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s career is already beyond doubt. The Slovenian of UAE Team Emirates-XRG fought his way back after a crash and eventually beat Tom Pidcock in the sprint. But the story has now become even more remarkable, after the world champion\u2019s mechanic revealed a striking detail. <\/p>\n

A great deal has been said and written<\/a> about how Milan-Sanremo unfolded, and we can still conclude that almost nobody could have expected a scenario like this. A crash in which many of the favourites were delayed, or brought down altogether, at one of the most crucial points of the race… it was the perfect set-up for a blockbuster finish. For IDL Procycling readers wanting the broader race recap, Poga\u010dar does the near-impossible with stunning fightback to win first Milan-San Remo<\/a> is the most logical internal reference point.<\/p>\n

In the end, it was Poga\u010dar who took the win, crossing the line with several injuries on his left side. The crash had clearly caused physical damage to the rider and, judging by Poga\u010dar\u2019s own comments afterward, some mental damage as well. But as it turns out, the bike also suffered more than first thought.<\/p>\n

Because what emerged afterward? \u201cOnly after the finish did we realise that Tadej had ridden the finale on a damaged frame,\u201d his mechanic, Bostjan Kavcnik, said in an interview with Delo<\/a>. The rear stay had been damaged in the crash. \u201cLuckily, it held together,\u201d the mechanic said.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar did not know about the damaged frame \u2014 and according to his mechanic, that was probably for the best<\/p>\n

So Poga\u010dar did not change bikes after the crash. According to the team, there was no immediate reason to do so. \u201cTadej crashed on his left side, where there is no shifter. Still, the crash mode was activated. He reset it himself and did not notice anything else unusual, so we decided not to make a change,\u201d was the explanation.<\/p>\n

In fact, there was another reason not to swap bikes. \u201cIt was the first time Tadej chose a single chainring. By removing the front derailleur and the extra chainring, we saved weight and improved aerodynamics.\u201d The wheels were also slightly narrower: 28 millimetres instead of the 30-millimetre setup used a year earlier.<\/p>\n

That was reason enough to stay on the same bike, and Poga\u010dar himself did not know the full extent of the damage. Kavcnik believes that was actually a good thing. \u201cIf Tadej had known the true condition of his bike, he would never have descended so aggressively. Not even when he attacked on the descent of the Poggio and tried to push Pidcock to the absolute limit.\u201d Knowledge may be power, but not always.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That Milan-Sanremo will go down as one of the most impressive victories of Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s career is already…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,211219,85,6494,19805],"class_list":["post-575615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-milan-san-remo","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575615","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=575615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}