Matej Mohoric on Saturday won Milan-San Remo with a stunning late, downhill burst, which led to him holding off a frustrated chasing pack featuring race favorites Tadej Pogacar and Wout van Aert.
Bahrain Victorious rider Mohoric, a stage winner on all three Grand Tours, launched an attack on the final descent from the Poggio climb after about 290km of riding to claim the season’s first ultra-long, one-day “Monument” race.
“I managed to get up the Poggio with the top riders and I thought to myself: ‘It’s now or never,’ and it turns out it was now,” Mohoric said in Italian to RAI.
Photo: AP
The Slovene finished two seconds ahead of France’s Anthony Turgis and Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, despite nearly crashing twice on his rapid descent and having a mechanical problem in the final few hundred meters following nearly six-and-a-half hours of cycling.
“I kept my calm despite almost crashing two times... The second time I slipped out both wheels, front and back, in the last sharp corner when the Poggio descent finishes,” Mohoric later told reporters.
“I lost a lot of time there, I think maybe two or three seconds ... and then on the last corner with 600m to go I dropped the chain because I changed gear in the corner and it’s quite a bumpy road,” he added.
His attack came after four unsuccessful attempts from Pogacar and another from Primoz Roglic on the Poggio climb, which is traditionally one of the launchpads for the race winner.
Instead, descent specialist Mohoric defied convention by making the decisive move on the descent. He darted down a winding slope before joining via Aurelia and crossing the line in front of a shocked and ecstatic crowd.
The 27-year-old said that he learned his impressive technique as a child in the Slovenian mountains, “building mountain bike trails in the woods behind the village, always doing descents and always pushing each other.”
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