Van der Poel wins Milan-San Remo 62 years after his grandfather Poulidor

taketonews

03/18/2023 at 17:52

TEC


The Dutch cyclist counterattacks at the top of the Poggio after following with Ganna and Van Aert to Pogacar which shattered the peloton

Among four human beasts, four savages, four soulless, four wonders, only the smartest of the class and the one who jumped down the road could win. Poggio without touching the brake, without looking back, speeding through the curves, alert, tenacious, without mercy to achieve a victory no less than in memory and in honor of a grandfather named Raymond Poulidor, a great among the greats in the history of racing. cycling, who took the same victory as his grandson Mathieu van der Poel back in 1961.

van der poel He is incredible, like his eternal enemy, Wout van Aert, the one who can be found everywhere, the one he defeated in the Cyclo-Cross World Championship, with dirt and slightly wider wheels, and the one who hunts him down and captures him in a descent where it is forbidden to take it easy. Van Aert he can’t and ends up third behind Filippo Gannathe giant of the four, and the one who saves strength when van der poel He is already an unattainable cyclist and you have to settle for second place; the first of the losers.

But all eyes are on the fourth man, the one who destroys everything going up the Poggio as if it were a flat track, like a runaway animal pedaling on a bike. Tadej Pogacar was left without being able to get a victory in a year where he had won everything so far. Because to succeed in the ‘classicissima’, it’s not worth just being number one in the world, the one who points to the Tour, the one who wins everywhere with much tougher and more extreme mountains than the Poggio di San Remo. Is pogacar the one that shatters the squad but not enough damage to eliminate van der poelto Ganna already Van Aert. Forks pogacar the one who can’t counterattack the final attack of van der poel just when the Poggio is crowned and in the place where a gap is made, if a few meters are achieved and there is no panic on the descent, only victory awaits the most calculating to win in the memory of his grandfather.

Of poulidor there are only black and white images. Of poulidor It is only remembered, sometimes unfairly, that he was second best because he never won the Tour and because he had the misfortune of crossing paths first. Jacques Anquetil and then with Eddy Merckx. But ‘Pou-Pou’, as the French called him, also won races such as Milan-San Remo, Paris-Nice, the Dauphiné and even the Tour of Spain in 1964long before his grandson was born and without life giving him the privilege of seeing him dressed in the yellow jersey of the Tour that he could not wear, nor of course the emotional tears of van der poel in the Tour or in Milan-San Remo. poulidor died in 2019 before his grandson Mathieu continue to grow as one of the great figures of current cicismo.



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