It finished with a suitably monumental effort after another crazy descent off the Poggio and with that Jasper Stuyven surprised himself as much as anyone to win Milan-San Remo with just enough time to raise both arms aloft.
After 299km, the longest one-day race in professional cycling, the Belgian rider made his boldly-timed move with 2.3km remaining, just as the front group of a dozen contenders came off the typically decisive final climb. Though briefly caught by Soren Kragh Andersen of Denmark, Stuyven’s second effort was enough to hold off the late chase of most of the pre-race favourites.
At that deciding point Sam Bennett wasn’t among them, the Irish rider still with the front group on the first approach to the Poggio, though separated by around 10 seconds at the top. That effort clearly wasn’t helped by a puncture and bike change with just under 40km to go, before the third of three short successive climbs known as the Capo, 2km in length with an uphill gradient of 6.4 per cent.
Though Bennett did get back into the group on the descent, it did mean making a major effort just when he needed to conserve energy; he also appeared to have some further mechanical issues with the replacement bike, seen taking on the race radio to his team Deceuninck-QuickStep.
Stuyven’s win, by far the biggest in the career of the 28-year-old from the famous chocolate-making family in Flanders, certainly seemed to surprise some of those chasers too, Celab Ewan from Australia taking second in the same time, 6:38:06, just a little too late though, with defending champion Wout van Aert from Belgium taking third as the remaining podium places were decided on the Via Roma.
Then came Bennett’s old rival Peter Sagan in fourth, that front group of 17 riders all given the same time, outright pre-race favourite Mathieu van der Poel finishing fifth, the Dutch rider on this occasion at least falling short of matching his French grandfather Raymond Poulidor, winner of Milan-San Remo in 1961.
Bennett, looking to become only the second Irish winner 29 years after Sean Kelly’s last of two wins, finished in the third main group of riders, in 42nd position, 29 seconds down on Stuyven. His win also gives Trek-Segafredo victory in the first Monument of the season, Ryan Mullen also riding for Trek-Segafredo, the Irish rider part of the group 7:56 back, in 129th place. Nicolas Roche also rode strongly early on for Team DSM and finished 115th in the group 7:14 down.
There was no arguing with Stuyven’s effort, the best rider of the 25 teams and 175 riders, although Bennett is left wondering a little about what might have been. The bike change certainly cost him some energy, the peloton first split into two groups between the Cipressa and the Poggio, with Bennett just sitting off the back of the front group, though not looking happy with his bike, at one point appearing to ask van der Poel to squirt some water onto his disc brakes.
Bennett’s teammate and 2019 winner Julian Alaphilippe ended up 16th, the 112th edition of La Classicissima di Primavera still best known as the sprinters’ Monument producing one of its most surprising winners.
“I can’t describe how I feel, it’s unbelievable,” said Stuyven. “We had a plan to go for it, to try to win. I felt really good all day and the finale went well. There was a lot of fast guys in the group after the Poggio, so I knew I had to try all or nothing. And I did. If it’d had gone to the line I could have finished fifth or 10th but I preferred to go all, so I took the biggest victory of my career.”
