Despite animating much of the finale at Milan-San Remo, BMC came up empty handed at the finish line after Philippe Gilbert crashed on the Poggio and Greg Van Avermaet ran out of steam for the sprint.
In tandem with Sky, BMC turned up the heat on the peloton as the fireworks touched off over the Cipressa and Poggio climbs, launching multiple attacks and trying to dictate the action before the sprinters eventually came to the fore on the Via Roma and seized the day.
Giant-Alpecin's John Degenkolb won the 106th edition of the La Primavera in an gutter-to-gutter sprint, beating defending champion Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) and Orica-Greenedge's Michael Matthews.
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“The team did a really good job,” a clearly disappointed Greg Van Avermaet said after finishing 19th. “We were in every break. I think we controlled the race a little bit together with Sky, but you see Sky and BMC are with no result.”
It became immediately clear on the Cipressa that Sky and BMC were determined to make the race as selective as possible. BMC's Van Avermaet and Silvan Dillier joined Sky's Geraint Thomas and Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-QuickStep) for a brief rally off the front, but it quickly petered out.
As the road flattened out coming off the Cipressa, BMC's Daniel Oss and Sky's Thomas forged clear. The duo established a lead of 30 seconds with 15 kilometres remaining, but the move was brought back to 17 seconds as they began climbing the Poggio.
Thomas eventually dropped Oss before Gilbert launched an acceleration within a kilometre of the summit. The move didn't stick, but Van Avermaet broke the deadlock when he ripped clear of the chasers and set out in pursuit of Thomas. The Belgian led all the way down the descent with his teammate Gilbert lurking just behind.
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