After so long without a win at Milano-Sanremo for the fast men, Jasper Philipsen made it the sprinters’ Monument once again, as he took the victory ahead of Michael Matthews and Tadej Pogačar in the sprint to the line on the Via Roma.
The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider had been dropped on the Poggio following two attacks from Pogačar, which his teammate Mathieu van der Poel was forced to close down. However, the unwillingness from the two to cooperate with each other on the descent allowed several other riders to come back to the front group before the finale.
A late attack from Matteo Sobrero, which was followed by Tom Pidcock counter-attack, looked like it could have been decisive, but the efforts of Van der Poel inside the final kilometre brought it all back together for the sprint with a few hundred metres to go.
In the finale, it was Jasper Stuyven who did the leadout for Mads Pedersen, but the Dane just did not have the legs to contest the sprint. When Matthews opened up his sprint, it provided Philipsen with the perfect slipstream, with the Belgian rider then jumping out of the wheel on the barrier side to pip the Australian on the line.
In his post-race interview, Philipsen reacted to winning the first Monument of his career, as when he was asked how it felt, he said “it’s incredible, I cannot realise it. A Monument is something that you dream of and definitely Milano-Sanremo, it’s maybe one of the only Monuments I can win. But yeah I’m really proud”.
On the efforts of his team and Van der Poel in the finale, he went on to say “what Mathieu did in the final was an incredible job and yeah I’m really proud and happy that we could manage and play it out as a team”.
This year’s edition of Milano-Sanremo was the fastest in the history of the race, with an average speed of 46.1km/h, beating the previous record of 45.8km/h set by Gianni Bugno in 1990. “They break the records every year it seems like” said Philipsen, “the speed is going faster and faster every year and I was actually feeling quite good, I had a feeling today that it could be my day and I had good legs from the start”.
It all came back together for Philipsen in the finale though, as he said “everything needed to fall into place. Definitely, on the Poggio the favourites looked at each other a little bit and I managed to come back. Mathieu was there, he really did a big team job and I thank him a lot for what he did”.
When asked to analyse the final sprint, Philipsen stated that “I was a bit afraid that Mads was still really strong. I didn’t expect Michael Matthews to be that good. I didn’t have to do a sprint all day, but after three-hundred kilometres a sprint really feels strange and different. I was happy I just had the final five centimetres left to beat him”.
Philipsen’s victory marked his second victory of the season after his stage win at Tirreno-Adriatico last week. The Belgian rider’s is set to defend his win from last season at the Classic Brugge-De Panne next week, before heading to Gent-Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Ronde van Vlaanderen ahead of Paris-Roubaix, where he will be looking to improve upon last year’s second place finish and take his second Monument victory of the season.
