Tadej Pogacar says he ‘stuck to’ the plan and ‘couldn’t do much better’ after third place at Milano-Sanremo

Tadej Pogacar has said that UAE Team Emirates “had a plan and stuck to it” at Milano-Sanremo, and “they couldn’t do much better” than his third-placed finish.

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the race with a fantastic sprint finish in Sanremo, where the Belgian left Pogacar in his wake, after assistance from last year’s winner and his team-mate Mathieu van der Poel, who finished 10th.

Michael Matthews (Team Jayco AlUla) took second spot. It was the third time on the podium for Matthews, his first second place, from 11 appearances across a 15-year cycling career.

Pogacar did, however, show excellent resilience on his own in the final stretch, outlasting Lidl-Trek’s elite sprinters Mads Pedersen and Jasper Stuyven in the final kilometres.

“We had a plan and stuck to it,” Pogacar told Eurosport after the race.

“We missed little bits – maybe 10% – on Cipressa and after. The team had to wait too long on the Poggio, so it wasn’t too hard, and I tried to attack twice.

“I had incredible legs, but this year was not hard enough to be a climber’s race. I did everything I could to get third place. In this situation, I couldn’t have done much better. It was close.

“Today was one of the easiest races ever. We rode at a super easy tempo in the first few hours, but everything needed to be perfect, and today everything was not perfect.

“We did really good and I think the podium was the [best] we could do.”