Nibali on Pogacar’s Sanremo problem: 'Perhaps his limit, is that he thinks he can manage everything with strength'

Nibali’s starting point is how much faster the sport has become. “We used to race at an average of 42 kilometres per hour. Today it is 47,” he said. “Those five kilometres are not just about training. They are about the entire race package. The bike, the handlebar, the saddle, the seatpost, the wheels, the shoes, the socks, the shorts. Everything performs better.”

The consequence is a peloton that snaps back into shape quickly and gives less room for long range gambles. “To attack when the bunch is riding at 45, you need to go at 50. The bar is raised and you have to hold that speed for longer, because the peloton no longer lets you go.”

That context matters because Pogacar’s Sanremo idea is clear: make the Poggio hard enough and the race breaks. Nibali agrees Pogacar is one of the few who can still try it. “The exception is Pogacar. He has remarkable explosiveness, then he settles into his rhythm and sends everyone into the red,” he said. “And when you are in the red, it takes a long time to recover.”

Where Nibali draws the line is what happens when the race turns into a head to head contest. Pogačar often races as if the strongest move will always be the winning move. “Any race he wins, he wins through strength, not tactically,” Nibali said. “He attacks because he is stronger. But who wins with cunning and tactics? Van der Poel.”

That contrast sits at the heart of Nibali’s reading of Milano Sanremo. “Perhaps his limit, if you can even call it a limit, is that he thinks he can manage everything with strength,” he continued. “Look at Milano Sanremo: he tries to drop everyone on the climb, without thinking about the possibility of winning it the way I did, on the descent.”

Nibali knows that route better than most, and he knows how Sanremo can flip in seconds. His own win in 2018 came from an attack on the Poggio and then the real work in the descent, when hesitation behind is worth more than watts in front.

Against Van der Poel, those small moments matter even more. Nibali replayed the key exchange on the Poggio in his mind. “When Pogacar attacked and Van der Poel kept him in his sights, I immediately said that if Tadej was not careful, the other would counterattack and leave him there,” he recalled. “One second later that is exactly what happened.” 

Pogacar did manage to come back after the counter, but Nibali still sees that sequence as the point where the balance shifted. “In my opinion, he lost Milano Sanremo at that exact moment.”

After that, Van der Poel did what he does so well in Sanremo. He stayed calm at the top, measured the situation and kept control towards Sanremo. Nibali called the sprint another piece of know how, “managed the way someone does who knows exactly how to handle those situations.”

Pogačar will come back, because he does not leave a race like this alone. Nibali’s point is simply that Sanremo is not always decided by the hardest attack, even when it looks that way in the moment.