A man of the match showing from Paolini
John Degenkolb carried off the spoils at Milan-San Remo but the day’s outstanding individual performance came from the evergreen Luca Paolini, who reprised his best supporting actor’s role from last year and came within 100 yards of delivering his Katusha teammate Alexander Kristoff to a second successive Primavera win.
When Kristoff was dangling on the back on the Cipressa, suffering under the weight of Sky’s forcing, it was Paolini who acted as the Virgil to his Dante, serving as his guide through that hellish moment and keeping him in the hunt.
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Paolini was even more impressive on the Poggio, where he bustled his way to the front and, with Kristoff tucked on his wheel, set a brisk, even tempo that discouraged any accelerations until the upper reaches of the climb.
His final act, like last year, came amid the chaos of the frantic closing kilometres in the streets of San Remo. Somehow, Paolini bustled his way to the front and produced the longest of lead-outs for Kristoff – though not quite long enough as it turned out. Kristoff was forced to come past a tiring Paolini a notch sooner than he would have liked and was passed by Degenkolb at the death.
The fault was certainly not Paolini’s, though a comparison with last year’s race shows how many variables are in play in the finale of a major classic. And winning Milan-San Remo, in particular, is not an exact science.
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