{"id":489611,"date":"2026-03-22T17:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T17:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/489611\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T17:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T17:38:11","slug":"reflections-from-the-mens-milan-san-remo-pogacar-overcomes-the-chaos-prefers-focaccia-to-a-2027-return-mcnultys-work-and-praise-for-van-der-poel-and-pedersen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/489611\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections from the men’s Milan-San Remo \u2013 Poga\u010dar overcomes the chaos, prefers focaccia to a 2027 return, McNulty’s work, and praise for Van der Poel and Pedersen"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s difficult to encapsulate the emotions of Milan-San Remo<\/a> just a few hours after the race. We witnessed one of the best-ever editions of La Primavera, and so one of the best one-day Classics ever. There is still so much to take in, so much to understand, and so much to savour.<\/p>\n

Emotions are complex, very human, and so difficult to put into words, just like this year’s Milan-San Remo. What happened during the six and a half hours of racing, and especially in the electrifying final half hour? How did Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> get up from his crash, chase back on, attack on the Cipressa and Poggio and then beat Tom Pidcock in the sprint?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I stayed awake until 2:00 am after the race on Saturday night, watching replays, thinking back to what I witnessed beyond the finish line chaos on the Via Roma, what riders told me and especially what Tadej Poga\u010dar said post-race.<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

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Yet it feels like we’ve only scratched the surface and started to appreciate what we saw on Saturday. This year’s Milan-San Remo is something to discuss and savour for weeks, months and years to come.<\/p>\n

On Sunday morning, San Remo was quiet, the Via Roma was empty and soulless, just another road of shops, bars and daily Italian life. Yet the magic of Saturday still lingered in the air. We are all still drunk on the emotions of the race and looking forward to whatever comes next.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase the Tintin meme: “What a Classics season, huh?”<\/p>\n

“Captain, they’ve only raced Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo, all the cobbled Classics are still to come\u2026”<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar’s crash and comeback<\/p>\n

As Alex Roos of L’Equipe wrote in Sunday’s French sports paper, which had the Tadej Poga\u010dar and Tom Pidcock<\/a> Via Roma sprint on the front page: “There is nothing more beautiful than what is imperfect, what goes awry, the unexpected, and Tadej Poga\u010dar won the greatest challenge of his career on Saturday after a completely chaotic scenario.<\/p>\n

“He demonstrated that no matter how much cycling modernises, no matter how much it bombards us with its watts and kilojoules, it will never be anything without instinct, without that extra something.”<\/p>\n

That chaos, the unexpected, the way Poga\u010dar, the usual dominant force in cycling, came back from adversity to win Milan-San Remo, is what made it a race for the ages.<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar was close to climbing off or rolling into San Remo along the coast road after his crash.<\/p>\n

Then the adrenaline kicked in, his natural determination cancelled the pain, and his teammates were on hand to lead him back to the peloton and to the front on the climb of the Cipressa<\/a>, inspiring arguably the greatest performance<\/a> of his career.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s definitely one of the biggest wins in my career,” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

“I need to sleep it off a little bit. I don’t know much about what happened in the final. It just was all out. I still need a moment to realise that we won Milan-San Remo.”<\/p>\n

Never race Milan-San Remo again Tadej, please race Milan-San Remo ever year Tadej<\/p>\n

\n

\"SANREMO,\n<\/p>\n

Could this be last time we see Poga\u010dar flying down the Poggio descent? (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar joked to Cyclingnews that he only wants to return to San Remo to eat Focaccia<\/a>, not race and train on the Cipressa and Poggio and the Ligurian roads packed with Italian traffic that he described as ‘criminal’.<\/p>\n

Having now won Milan-San Remo, Poga\u010dar could decide to never return, never have to focus his winter on training for a Cipressa attack and risk his neck in the Ligurian traffic.<\/p>\n

He has shaken off the pressure and speculation that he could never win Milan-San Remo, and ended the obsession that risked driving even Poga\u010dar crazy.<\/p>\n

“This race costs a lot of effort, also mentally. It’s one of the most unpredictable races I’ve ever done. I think it is one of the most unpredictable races in the world,” he admitted.<\/p>\n

Never riding Milan-San Remo again would turn his 2026 victory into a mic-drop moment. But it would be a tragedy for us. After what we saw on Saturday, we can only hope that he returns again and again, to challenge the chaos of Milan-San Remo and give us the thrill of the best half an hour of bike racing of the year.<\/p>\n

We want a race like that every year, where Poga\u010dar is forced to give his all to win against the odds, elevating his own determination and the performance of his rivals<\/p>\n

McNulty shows his maturity with Cipressa performance<\/p>\n

\n

\"SANREMO,\n<\/p>\n

McNulty leading the way up the Cipressa (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

American racer Brandon McNulty<\/a> was happy and emotional beyond the Milan-San Remo finish line, knowing he had played a vital part in Poga\u010dar’s victory.<\/p>\n

McNulty was making his Milan-San Remo debut, replacing injured Tim Wellens and Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez. UAE Team Emirates-XRG needed him to play a vital role, especially after Jan Christen crashed out early<\/a>, and McNulty stepped up without fear.<\/p>\n

When Poga\u010dar crashed on the approach to the Cipressa, McNulty followed team orders to wait for him at the back of the peloton and then drag him up to the front on the early part of the Cipressa.<\/p>\n

McNulty used his power to move past most of the peloton in less than a kilometre, dropping off Poga\u010dar like an experienced leadout man. He could have then eased up, job done. Instead, he went to the front and lined out the peloton with a huge, long surge. Isaac del Toro was behind, with Poga\u010dar in place, ready to attack.<\/p>\n

McNulty played a role in transforming chaos into race control<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We came back just at the bottom of the Cipressa, I went as hard as I could to get to the front and then I didn’t see in the front, but I could hear on the radio that it was crazy,” McNulty said of his work and how he heard Poga\u010dar’s victory play out ahead of him.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar later hugged McNulty with genuine emotion and gratitude, their relationship stronger than ever after Poga\u010dar helped McNulty win the GP de Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

“It’s always an honour to ride for him. It was definitely nice to repay him,” McNulty said.<\/p>\n

Praise for Mathieu van der Poel and Mads Pedersen<\/p>\n

\n

\"Alpecin-Deceuninck's\n<\/p>\n

Van der Poel played a starring role on Saturday even if his finger injury saw him drop back on the Poggio (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

While Poga\u010dar and his UAE team celebrated in the Via Roma, the defeated were hit by the pain of the race and of disappointment. Mathieu van der Poel<\/a> and Mads Pedersen<\/a> could especially be proud, however.<\/p>\n

I watched the final kilometres near Van der Poel’s entourage, his father Adri glued to a mobile phone, his mother pacing around like in a prison cell of fear, unable to watch her son suffer and waiting for it all to end.<\/p>\n

Van der Poel stopped near them in the Via Roma, but there was no celebration like in 2023 and 2025, just blood on his hand, growing pain and disappointment. Van der Poel was hit by a bike in the crash<\/a> and raced the finale with Poga\u010dar in pain, p\u00e8rhaps even with a fractured finger.<\/p>\n

He was cruelly distanced on the Poggio and then caught by the chasers, but somehow finished eighth and so fifth in the 35-rider group that came in just four seconds down on Poga\u010dar. He was defeated but could be proud of his race and will surely be back to his best on the cobbles.<\/p>\n

Mads Pedersen finished fourth but was rightly proud of his day. It was only his second race of the season<\/a> after crashing out of the Volta Comunitat Valenciana, where he fractured his right collarbone and left wrist, but he fought all the way to the line with his Lidl-Trek teammates.<\/p>\n

They inspired the chase group along the Auralia coast road, reducing the lead of Poga\u010dar, Pidcock and van der Poel to just ten seconds before the Poggio.<\/p>\n

“That’s racing,” Pedersen told Eurosport at the finish. “It’s, of course, nice to be back, better than expected, so it was a good day. It was a pity I couldn’t take the podium, but it is what it is.”<\/p>\n

Next up for Poga\u010dar \u2013 the cobbles, the Ardennes and a fifth Tour de France<\/p>\n

\n

\"Alpecin-Deceuninck's\n<\/p>\n

Another battle on the cobbles lies in wait for Poga\u010dar and Van der Poel (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar understandably wanted to savour his Milan-San Remo victory but will soon head north to Belgium for the Tour of Flanders<\/a>, then to France for Paris-Roubaix.<\/p>\n

After that comes a trip to the hills for the Ardennes Classics and Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge<\/a>, a race he’s won three times previously, as he chases more Monument victories.<\/p>\n

Let’s not forget that he can also win a record-equallying fifth Tour de France in July.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar was the first world champion to win Milan-San Remo in the rainbow jersey since Beppe Saronni in 1983. In the weeks to come, he can make more cycling history by winning Paris-Roubaix<\/a> and so completing his collection of the sports Monuments. Only Eddy Merckx has won more Monuments (19 to Poga\u010dar’s 11), but he has time on his side to rewrite even that record.<\/p>\n

For now, Poga\u010dar is just happy to have won Milan-San Remo.<\/p>\n

“I’m just so happy now that whatever comes next is fine, I will not beat my head or anything,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Of course, the shape is good, and I will go to Flanders and Roubaix with a strong team. And we go for the win in both races. I’m looking forward to Flanders and Roubaix now.”<\/p>\n

Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We’ll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. <\/a>Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s difficult to encapsulate the emotions of Milan-San Remo just a few hours after the race. We witnessed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-489611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}