Milan-San Remo 2018

The road

At the start

Rain in Milan, and Sagan still waiting

Nearly 294 kilometres to San Remo, and it is already pouring. Michal Kwiatkowski returns as champion after pipping Peter Sagan on the Via Roma a year ago, and the pair have spent the week trading words about it. Quick-Step start three leaders, Groupama-FDJ ride for Démare, and Mark Cavendish comes with a preparation wrecked by crashes. The Poggio crests 5.4 kilometres out — a handful of seconds up there is enough.

How it was won

1. 170 km to go

   The rain finally stops

   Seven hours out of Milan the riders have been soaked since Savona, and only at Ceriale, seventy kilometres from home, do the roads turn dry. Jackets come off, gloves are swapped, and the peloton begins to remember it is racing.

2. 239 km to go

   Capo Berta bites

   Thirty-nine kilometres out the last of the Capi cuts the breakaway's lead to half a minute and shells Marcel Kittel out the back. Only four escapees are left over the top, and they are riding for nothing.

3. 322 km to go

   Cipressa, under control

   Blue sky now, the road warm and dry. Mitchelton-Scott lead Trentin onto the climb, Nathan Haas shadows Nibali, Sagan sits placidly mid-bunch — and Sky come through to shut the whole thing down. Nobody gets away.

4. 49 km to go

   The bollard before the Poggio

   A full-tilt lead-out from Groupama-FDJ and Astana into the foot of the climb, and the traffic furniture in the middle of the road takes its toll: Mark Cavendish hits a bollard square on and goes down hard.

5. 56 km to go

   Nibali goes over the top alone

   Krists Neilands lights it up just below the crest and Nibali, who has waited a dozen years for exactly this, jumps across and keeps going. Neilands is dropped inside a hundred metres. Over the summit the Sicilian has twelve seconds and the best descent in cycling in front of him, and behind him Trentin is already screaming for help that will not come in time.

6. 6At the line

   Via Roma

   Nibali holds the sprint off by the width of the finishing straight. Caleb Ewan comes past the line two seconds too late; Italy has its Classicissima again.

The result