Milan-San Remo 2012

The road

At the start

Cavendish wants it in the rainbow

Milan, the Castello Sforzesco, and 298 kilometres before anybody knows anything. Mark Cavendish wants La Primavera in the world champion's jersey and has the sprint for it — if Le Manie and the capi let him keep it. Fabian Cancellara arrives off Strade Bianche and second place here last year. Matthew Goss defends the title. And BMC bring Gilbert, who abandoned Tirreno with a fever, and no wins at all this season.

How it was won

1. 1277 km to go

   Nine go clear

   Twenty-one kilometres out of Milan, nine riders slip away — Mørkøv, Gruzdev, Oroz, Cheng Ji and five more — and the peloton hands them thirteen minutes. Seven hours of racing is a long time to be wrong about anything.

2. 295 km to go

   Le Manie eats Cavendish

   GreenEdge and Liquigas drive the pace onto Le Manie and the most famous name in the race comes off the back. Bernhard Eisel drops out of the bunch to drag Mark Cavendish back, and for twenty kilometres it almost works.

3. 360 km to go

   The break dies, and so does Cavendish

   With sixty kilometres left the nine are swallowed. Ten kilometres later Cavendish sits up, thanks his team for the day they have burned on him, and lets San Remo go.

4. 422 km to go

   Villa and Hoogerland on the Cipressa

   BMC light the Cipressa, Liquigas pile in behind, and near the summit Francisco Javier Villa jumps. Johnny Hoogerland bridges to him and the pair tip over the top with a gap the favourites are content to watch.

5. 521 km to go

   Gilbert goes down

   On the plunge off the Cipressa the road claims the Belgian champion. Philippe Gilbert is up and riding again within seconds, but the race is already gone down the mountain without him.

6. 66 km to go

   Nibali attacks, Gerrans follows

   Rabobank hit the Poggio at a pace that strips the front group bare. Agnoli goes, Madrazo goes, Hoogerland goes again — and then Vincenzo Nibali stands on the pedals and empties himself on the steepest, twisting middle of the climb. Only Simon Gerrans can hold the wheel. Fabian Cancellara, the strongest man in Italy that afternoon, hauls himself across on his own, and three riders swing left onto the descent with the whole of Milan-San Remo in their hands.

7. 7At the line

   Gerrans by a nose

   Cancellara leads it out from the front, as he always does, as everybody knew he would. Gerrans comes off his shoulder on the right and takes the Via Roma by the width of a face — a second Australian winner in two years, and the first Monument of GreenEdge's first season.

The result