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News & Racing<\/a><\/p>\n A roundtable discussion of the key questions facing the contenders for the first Monument of the season.<\/p>\n Cor Vos<\/p>\n In an age where the biggest races are in increasing danger of being all too predictable, Milan-San Remo stands out as one of the top prizes on the calendar that still feels like an open-ended affair. No one can say for sure when the winning move will go or if anyone will even be able to get clear in a finale perfectly balanced on the razor’s edge between favoring the attackers and the fast finishers.<\/p>\n That’s true even as Mathieu van der Poel goes for his third career win in the event on Saturday, where his biggest rival will be the peloton’s biggest star \u2013\u00a0who has not yet managed to crack this particular nut. Tadej Poga\u010dar is so often the odds-on favorite that it’s striking when, one day out from the race, the bookmakers don’t actually favor one single rider over the field.<\/p>\n That leaves plenty of room for prognosticators to maneuver, and we’re taking full advantage of the opportunity. Heading into the season’s first Monument, we (Dane Cash and Joe Lindsey) debate some of the key questions that face the big players…<\/p>\n Joe Lindsey: Asking whether Tadej Poga\u010dar can win a race feels like an extremely strange question. But this is Milan-San Remo, where I think consensus is settling that it may be the hardest race of all for him to solve, simply because it\u2019s not that conventionally hard. Yes, it\u2019s long, but the race has just over 2,500 meters of climbing over 298 km, which counts as pretty gentle by today\u2019s WorldTour standards.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m wondering if this year\u2019s M-SR is Poga\u010dar\u2019s best shot yet. In five tries, he\u2019s finished no lower than 12th, and has been third the past two editions. I think this year is promising partly because the field is a touch thinned. Perennial M-SR hopeful Michael Matthews is out. Previous winner Wout van Aert and reliable top-10 finisher Mads Pedersen are still coming back on form after early-season injuries.<\/p>\n Milan-San Remo feels a bit like World Cup Downhill skiing, where there\u2019s a sweet spot of having enough experience with the course to have sorted out the tactical nous required, but fresh legs. So, tactical chops: If you look at the startlist, there are just 18 riders out of 170 starters who have ever finished top-10 here. Fresh legs: Of former winners on the startlist, four \u2013 John Degenkolb, Micha\u0142 Kwiatkowski, Julian Alaphilippe and Jasper Stuyven \u2013 are all 33 or older and likely are outside threats at most, if we\u2019re being generous.<\/p>\n There\u2019s always a surprise top-5 finisher here so you can\u2019t go purely on past results. But one thing going for Poga\u010dar is that there just aren\u2019t that many riders who he and his team have to mark. Short answer: Absolutely he can win. Whether he will? That\u2019s what we\u2019re all here to see, right?<\/p>\n Dane Cash: In the spirit of sports talk radio, I know I am supposed to disagree here, and frankly, there was a time when I saw San Remo as an insurmountable challenge for Poga\u010dar. There’s video evidence of me saying something along those lines out there in the How the Race was Won<\/a> ether. And yet …<\/p>\n This post is for paying subscribers only Already have an account? Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n Did we do a good job with this story?<\/p>\n \n \ud83d\udc4dYep![\"Dane](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Dane-Cash-150x150.jpg\")
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Question 1: Poga\u010dar has tried over and over again to take Milan-San Remo without success. Can he actually win?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/pogpremsr.jpeg\")
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