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Matej Mohoric wins the 113th edition of the classic and surprisingly wins his 1st cycling monument.
The 113th edition of the “Primavera” is unsurprisingly a Slovenian affair. But with Matej Mohoric, the winner of the first bike monument of the year is not one of the highly regarded duo of Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic.
When two fight…
Instead, it is the driver from Team Bahrain-Victorious who took advantage of the moment on the descent towards the finish line and attacked at the right moment. In contrast to his compatriot Pogacar, who had tried several times unsuccessfully to attack on the way up to Poggio, Mohoric’s risky descent 4 kilometers before the end was crowned with success.
The 27-year-old also benefited from the fact that the favorites disagreed on the home straight as to who should close the gap to the first Slovenian winner at Milan-Sanremo. For example, Belgium’s Wout van Aert and Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who both closed the gap in Pogacar’s attack attempts, saw Mohoric pull away. Van der Poel still secured third place behind Frenchman Anthony Turgis.
Beaten Favorites
As in the previous year, when Jasper Stuyven won, the almost 300-kilometre route claimed well-known victims in terms of the day’s victory. Not only the sprinter Fabio Jakobsen was one of the defeated, but also Thomas “Tom” Pidcock from the Ineos team, who had to pay tribute to the high speed early on and let it tear off.
As expected, the only two Swiss who started the race had nothing to do with the outcome of the race: Silvan Dillier was classified a good six minutes behind in 102nd place, Simon Pellaud was 133rd (11:15 behind).