Tadej Pogačar: Milan-San Remo wasn't hard enough

Tadej Pogačar's (UAE Team Emirates) wait for a Milan-San Remo title goes on after the Slovenian missed out on victory in a thrilling finale on Saturday.

As expected, the two-time Tour de France winner was one of the most active riders in the race, attacking twice on the Poggio after his team had set a relentless pace on the final climb.

However the pre-race favourite was unable to drop his main rivals, and following a re-grouping on the final decent, Pogačar was forced to settle for third behind winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Deceuninck) and second-placed Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla).

"We had a plan and we stuck to it but we missed a bit, maybe 10 per cent we missed on the Cipressa and after," Pogačar said after the finish.

"So in the end the team had to wait too long on the Poggio so it wasn’t too hard. I tried with two attacks. I had incredible legs but this year it wasn’t hard enough for it to be a climber’s race. I did everything that I could to be in third place. I think in this situation I couldn't have done much better. It was close."

Coming into the race, UAE Team Emirates had hinted at a major assault on the Cipressa, and although an effort was made, the squad appeared to run out of gas halfway up the ascent. They had hit the front of the peloton on the small hills just before the Cipressa, with 52km to go, and that move certainly signalled their intent before the penultimate climb.

Isaac del Toro was the key rider for Pogačar once the race hit the Cipressa but pre-race talk of breaking the nine-minute barrier for the climb quickly fell apart when del Toro slowed with over 1km to go until the summit.

From that moment on the front group swelled to over 40 riders, as several contenders made their way back to a selection that had at one point been down to less than 20.

Tim Wellens put in a huge turn on the front on the final climb in a bid to set up Pogačar but when the Slovenian attacked on the hardest part of he was instantly marked by defending champion Mathieu van der Poel, before another batch of riders made their way across. A second attack from the Slovenian created daylight at the front of the race, before Van der Poel, Tom Pidcock, and a group containing Philipsen returned on the descent.

In the sprint Van der Poel's attention switched to leading out his teammate, Philipsen, with Pogačar's fate effectively sealed.

"Today was one of the easiest races ever," he said, despite the fact that this was the fastest ever edition of Milan-San Remo.

"We rode a super easy tempo for the first few hours. Like I said before the race, everything must be perfect, and today not everything was perfect. We did a really good and I think the podium was the most we could do," Pogačar said.