For a few moments, this Saturday on Milano-Sanremo, Romain Grégoire earned himself a place among the greatest. When Tadej Pogacar blew the race apart on the Cipressa, the young puncher from Groupama-FDJ was indeed one of only three riders able to follow. Unfortunately, the adventure didn’t last for the Frenchman, who was eventually caught by a small peloton before the Poggio. He was then unable to conclude his nice day in the large sprint for fourth place (30th), but he certainly laid the foundations for future years.
Monument Day, and spring day! At least, that’s supposedly the promise of Milan-San Remo. Yet, it was with rain and quite cool temperatures that the riders set off on the 116th “Primavera” shortly after 10 a.m. on Saturday. Like last year, it all started in Pavia, and like last year, the total distance didn’t quite reach the mythical 300-km mark. To be precise, 289 kilometres of racing were on the menu, to which four kilometers of “neutral start” were to be added. Most of the course remained unchanged, with the anticipated explosion in the final hour of racing, but as usual, a breakaway led the way for most of the day. Alessandro Verre, Mathis Le Berre, Martin Marcellusi, Filippo Turconi, Tommaso Nencini, Mark Stewart, Baptiste Veistroffer and Kristian Sbaragli rode with a four-minute lead for several hours, while the riders finally saw the first sunrays as they got to the Ligurian coast, after crossing the Passo del Turchino. However, it wasn’t until the final seventy kilometres that the tension really increased, with a constant battle for positioning as the “Capi” approached. These first hills didn’t cause any significant damage within the peloton, and the expected great showdown on the slopes of the Cipressa was therefore looming.
“I didn’t think twice”, Romain Grégoire
The Groupama-FDJ squad then tried to keep its leader Romain Grégoire at the front, and they achieved it quite successfully. “The plan was for Clément and Lewis to be in the best possible conditions to be able to do this job for Romain,” explained Philippe Mauduit. “So, their teammates did their part upstream. Sven did a strong first part of the race, repositioning the guys on the Turchino to approach the descent in the lead and avoid any trouble. He pulled again a little later with Thibaud to get over the first Capi, then Lewis and Clément came into action. It went really well and it’s a great satisfaction because we saw today that it was a high-quality Milan-San Remo.” With twenty-seven kilometres to go, the French leader was therefore among the first ten riders to enter the penultimate climb of the day. “They did the job they needed to do, I was in the right place at the right time,” said Romain. And it was better to be there, since Tadej Pogacar’s teammates immediately set a furious pace. “I didn’t know if he was going to attack in the Cipressa, but I knew it was going to be very fast from the bottom to the top,” added Romain. The peloton stretched out enormously, with splits occurring, but the young man from Besançon remained at the very front.
Three kilometers from the top, the pace got too hard for a few riders ahead of him. He quickly closed the gap, and two hundred metres further on, Tadej Pogacar himself delivered the final stroke. Only three men managed to withstand the impact: Mathieu van der Poel, Filippo Ganna, and… Romain Grégoire. The Frenchman managed to hang on for a few hundred metres, but the prolonged effort ultimately proved too much for him, and the trio took off without him. “I didn’t think twice, and I went for it when the big acceleration came,” he said. “Unfortunately, my legs couldn’t keep up. They say that when you get too close to the sun, you get burned. I think that’s what happened to me today.” “It takes guts to close the gaps and get back on Ganna’s wheel, especially since Ganna was himself on Van der Poel and Pogacar,” Philippe said. “Apart from the physical qualities, it shows his mental strength and his desire to win big things.” Romain Grégoire stayed in-between until the top of the Cipressa, then was caught by a very thin peloton, where Quentin Pacher managed to come back in the transition to the Poggio. At the front of the race, no one was able to break away on the final climb of the course. Neither did someone in the peloton a minute later. “All the riders who were left in this group were on the limit, and no one was able to attack,” Philippe Mauduit said.
“We know Romain won’t be satisfied with that”, Philippe Mauduit
On the Via Roma, Mathieu van der Poel claimed victory from a three-man group, while a sprint of around forty riders decided the remaining positions. Quentin Pacher (29th) and Romain Grégoire (30th) couldn’t find their way through. “I have no regrets about trying to follow the best, because the legs spoke, but it’s again disappointing to come away without a result although I felt good,” said Romain. “I think I didn’t get rewarded today.” “Romain and Quentin were frustrated because they missed a bit their approach to the sprint, but everything that had been done beforehand had been well done,” concluded Philippe. “I’m disappointed for the boys that we didn’t get the result in the end because they deserved it. We’ll take all the positives. It’s already a genuine satisfaction to have seen the team at this level, to have succeeded in sticking to the plan we had set for ourselves, and to have seen Romain capable of fighting with the best. Obviously, we can be disappointed if we look at the result, but I want to remember the work, the commitment and still, Romain’s performance. There is no doubt that he will eventually get there. We mustn’t forget that the top three all have a little more experience than him. What he achieved today is great. We shouldn’t be satisfied with that, but we know him well enough to know that he won’t be satisfied with it, and that gives us hope for some great races in the coming weeks.”
