The cooking season opened on Saturday morning Great Classics of cycling that really matters. It's a sort of change of season for yours truly, which doesn't change the wardrobe, but at least the sports… yes.
On the day when Johannes Boe bowed before the King of Norway after having won, indeed dominated, the Biathlon World Cup.
On the Saturday when Chicco Pellegrino made me jump from room (because it was still too cold for the sofa) for yet another podium behind a that elusive Klaebo.
On the weekend where my personal Winter paradise on earth was now on the verge of reaching its end, a Monument appeared on the horizon. From its base to its apex, which indeed touched the clouds in the midst of which Eden sits, and at one time also reached the infinite expanse of the Sea, lay 294 kilometers.
Two hundred and ninety-four kilometers of effort, sweat, blood, but also gossip, rediscovered emotions, because it was from Classic of Dead Leaves (Lombardy) that in a group you didn't breathe those sensations.
In cycling there are five Great Monuments and of these two speak Italian: the first is right there Milan-Sanremo. The route changes (for issues that have nothing to do with cycling), yet the pillars on which this absolute heritage of humanity stands are always the same: the Passo del Turchino, the Cipressa and the Poggio.
It's true: for two hundred and fifty kilometers you get bored, it makes no sense to look at it, God save Greg (Luca Gregorio) and the Skinny (Riccardo Magrini) who they find something to talk about for seven hours of live coverage in the company of Moreno Moser.
But then, Pikachu Pogacar starts putting his UAE to work and Pasqualon attacks the Poggio with Mohoric on his wheel with the same speed as when, as children, we ran away from our mother who was chasing us ready to throw the slipper at us. Then Trentin stops suddenly breaking the lead group and Tadej attacks, and from room he enjoys.
It is enjoyed because cycling has no flag.
He enjoys why Goofy Ganna he forgot to bring one hundred and ninety-three centimeters topped with eighty-two kilos on the pedals and goes to fasten the strap with the Slovenian.
He enjoys it because with them there are two lifelong rivals: Wout (Van Aert) and Mathieu (Van der Poel).
VDP takes off when there is very little left to go to the end of the three kilometers and seven hundred meters that make up the Poggio. The predestined, Raymond Poulidor's nephew, it's making matter what the night before was just a dream, which reveals itself at that premonitory moment. Sixty-two years after grandfather Pou-Pou, Mathieu raises his arms to the sky in the mythological Via Roma: the City of Flowers is in your hands. Emperor Matthew takes Sanremo, while behind the phenomenon of Alpecin-Deceuninck, an extraordinary Filippo Ganna appears to regulate the trio. The Classics campaign has finally begun.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Happy Spring to all.
Article The Poggio, the Flowers and the Emperor Mathieu From Sports born.
