It’s all about perspective. When Ben Swift (Team Sky) placed third at Milan-San Remo two years ago, it was welcomed as an important step in the Englishman’s development. Speaking in the mixed zone after placing second behind Arnaud Démare (FDJ) on the Via Roma on Saturday afternoon, one sensed that Swift was still weighing up in his own mind whether the glass was half full or half empty.
“Yeah, I think it’s a harder feeling really. At the moment I kind of feel… not flat, but not overjoyed, because second place is perhaps one of the worst places you can finish,” Swift said. “But I’m happy to be back on the podium. Arnaud Démare’s a fantastic sprinter and to get second to him is… we’ll keep trying.”
Swift lined out as part of a strong Sky unit that set out from Milan with Paris-Nice winner Geraint Thomas, former world champion Michal Kwiatkowski and Ian Stannard among its race of attacking options. The Yorkshire man, meanwhile, was designated to follow the wheels and save his energy – as best as one could in a race of 300 kilometres – for the sprint on the Via Roma.
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Despite losing Thomas and Pete Kennaugh to a crash at the base of the Cipressa, Sky succeeded in implementing its game plan. Stannard forged up the road with Giovanni Visconti (Movistar) on the Cipressa, and then Kwiatkowski opened a gap at the top of the Poggio and led on the plunge down the other side.
“We wanted to make it an attacking race and we had a super strong team,” Swift said. “Unfortunately Geraint Thomas and Pete Kennaugh were taken down in one of the crashes so that was a lot of firepower that we lost there, really. But we wanted to try to attack and Michal Kwiatkowski did a brilliant job in the finale, he put a lot of pressure on the guys to chase.”
Indeed, as Kwiatkowski snaked down the Poggio, it briefly appeared as though he might have conjured up a win on the same stamp as his triumph in the Ponferrada Worlds, only for the race to come back together as the road flattened out in San Remo.
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