Among the reasons that, according to Baldato, they allowed to Pogacar to win the Flanders there was the work of teammatesHaving shaved a minute off the breakaway, they in fact allowed the Slovenian to get back on Trentin on the run without staying too long in no man's land. It occurred to us the work done instead by Jacopo Mosca at SanremoIn Flanders it took four men to take a minute off the breakaway, in Sanremo only Mosca had nine men in his sights and the other 165 close behind. We asked him to reason about the difference, taking advantage of the free time after training at High Performance Center of Sierra Nevada, preparing for the Giro.
What does it mean to race a Sanremo, having to push all day?
I knew beforehand that I would do it, I knew it practically from the beginning of the yearWe had talked about it among comrades and also with Mads (Pedersen, ed.), who had immediately said he wanted to aim for Sanremo. It is a role which has always been seen over the years. There's always someone who can pull in a team where the captains can run the race.Having two leaders like Pedersen and Stuyven, we started with a fairly precise idea.
And how did it go?
We didn't win, Mads finished sixth. He just missed out on being among the top four.When you have a leader like that, it's only right to give your contribution to pull. UAE It came first, true, but after Turchino. They could have easily done it first, since they had Pogacar. In any case, we started with our idea and so did Jumbo.
How do you prepare for a day when you're going to be so busy?
I started with the bike set up to pull. With the 75 wheels and the 56 in frontI knew what to expect and luckily I had a good day, because I managed to get to Capo Mele by pulling from the startOf course, when the race got heated, I went from first to last place. I resisted until Cape Berta and then I broke away with the other dead..
You shot alone, at Flanders UAE he shot with four men…
It's different, not to diminish what I've done. At Sanremo, you sit there, go at 45-50 miles an hour consistently all day, and take a few turns every now and then. In Flanders you have to take bend after bend, continuous relaunches, climbs and descents. They certainly arrived at the moment of shooting with an enormous effort already in their legs and then they made a violent action. I have done a long and constant action.
Do you prepare for a day like Sanremo in the weeks leading up to it?
Basically you don't need any special work. You have to be well, but usually I work a lot on the base and maybe less on explosiveness. Now my job in the group is this, to keep the others covered, to pull… To do a Sanremo like that, You just have to be fit and have a lot of endurance, because I was pulling for 250 kilometers anyway.
Given this, was the escape doomed or was there room for success?
We raced smartly. Knowing the wind was favorable, we didn't leave much space because there were only nine of us anyway. I'm sorry for Tonelli and Maestri, with whom I had spoken before the raceI told him, "I hope there aren't many of you, because if there are too many of you, we'll have to leave little space." And so it was, we started almost immediately. There was also Van Emden from Jumbo, we kept them at 3-4 minutesAfter a while, you figure out what pace you can maintain. If the breakaway is going 45 miles an hour, you go 45 miles an hour. You spend a day at medium, Z2 or Z3. It's a pace you can maintain all day, unlike when you have to make a violent effort that then requires you to recover.
How far away should you keep your escape to prevent others from wanting to leave?
If you have less than 3 minutes when you start the Turchino Valley, by fighting for positions you eat up too much of an advantage and maybe you get to the sea with the breakaway only a minute awayThey got there in 1'30”, but we knew that once there, they would accelerate, while the group behind makes the last general pit stop, so the advantage starts to increase againIn fact, they went within 5 minutes, but we were going so fast behind that it was impossible for the escape to arrive.
At what point in the Sanremo should the breakaway be in the crosshairs?
It depends, because now the level is so high that sooner or later someone will arriveThe Cipressa is climbed at 35 miles an hour, the Poggio at 40. You lose a minute on each climb, but there's always a small percentage of risk. In my opinion, the best strategy is to arrive one minute late at the start of the CipressaAfter Berta you can even have two, because one will be eaten up in the fight for positions before Cipressa. To complete that 2-kilometer straight, up to the right-hand bend, the group takes a minute and a half, so it's going 70 miles an hour.
Pedersen finished third in the Tour of Flanders, beating the leaders with a breakaway: would the same tactic be possible in Sanremo?
It can never happen. Al Flanders, if you are in front you don't have to constantly respond to the group's shots and you can manage yourself. Sanremo, if you stay on the wheel you can do 250 kilometers spending very little, but When you get to the end, it becomes a long 50-kilometer sprint. It's a constant acceleration, a unique shock.If you have been out in the open for a long time, when the fresher ones arrive on the Poggio from behind, They pass you by at double speed and it's hard for you to hold onto them.
Lastly, what do you think of Elisa Longo Borghini's sprint at the Tour of Flanders? She mentioned the benefits of the sprints you do together...
Basically, from mid-January to today we've gone out on our bikes maybe once. But during the winter we did at least one sprint every day.At first, it was mostly fun. Then after a while, you force yourself to do it, because you know it's good for you and always brings a bit of competitiveness. It's not that she wasn't fast before, and now she's become faster thanks to this. But at least now, by doing them, he believes in them a little more and the difference is visible..
And then it must be said that she is a long-distance athlete, right?
Exactly, and that's what I've always tried to tell her. If she sprints against Balsamo, obviously there'll never be a contest. But Elisa is so strong and resistant that at the end of a race where everyone is in a block, the fastest one might lose the peak power, while she has the same one. And then on the Flanders I must say that it was also tactically perfect and I'm proud of that...
That?
It's not like I can teach her anything, but we knew she wasn't in top condition. When you're not strong, you have to get there with intelligence and I always had to think to get somewhere. And this time Elisa made a virtue of necessity..
