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Julian Alaphilippe sprints to Milan-Sanremo winJulian Alaphilippe wins Milan-Sanremo ( LaPresse - D'Alberto)

Julian Alaphilippe sprints to Milan-Sanremo win

Deceuninck – Quick Step’s 19th win of the season
by Alex Bowden
Sat, Mar 23, 2019 16:24
3

Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck - Quick Step) has won his first Monument, taking Milan-Sanremo with a sprint from a small front group.

The route was almost identical to 2018, covering the Turchino, the Capi, the Cipressa and the Poggio, for a total distance of 291km.

There were plenty of riders in the bunch as the race hit the Poggio, the final climb of the day, but a high pace stretched the race and a series of moves off the front finally caused some splits.

Alaphilippe was already to the fore at this point, dragging a group of big names clear that included former winner Michal Kwiatkowski, world champion Alejandro Valverde and Peter Sagan.

By the finish, they’d been joined by Vincenzo Nibali, Tom Dumoulin and Michael Matthews among others.

The sprint was the usual jerky, disorganised affair with no-one especially willing to lead things out. However, fresh from having won a bunch sprint in Tirreno-Adriatico last week, Alaphilippe hit the front surprisingly early and was strong enough to hold everyone off.

Former Belgian champion Oliver Naesen (AG2R) finished second with Kwiatkowski third.

The win was Deceuninck – Quick Step’s 19th of the season

Julian Alaphilippe
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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3 comments

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Joe Totale | 5 years ago
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TBF a lot of Team Sky's criticism is how they can use their huge budget to shop around and get the best riders to sign for them, hence building the perfect team that way.  Apparently their budget was over twice of Quickstep's and they have had a lot less issues getting a new lead sponsor:

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/new-chinese-worldtour-team-wil...

Quickstep seem fantastic at scouting and developing top talent, look at all the great riders that have left them in the past few years but that doesn't seem to have had an impact upon their success as a team.

I agree that there seems to be a strong culture of winning in both teams. With reference to the first comment it's interesting how several riders such as Tony and Dan Martin and Kittel haven't been quite the same since they've left Quickstep.  

 

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madcarew | 5 years ago
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Without wanting to start up the doping trolls, I wonder what Quickstep's secret is? They really are the winningest team at the moment. They don't target the Tours, but mop up pretty much everything else. Their current success is pretty extraordinary.

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RobD replied to madcarew | 5 years ago
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madcarew wrote:

Without wanting to start up the doping trolls, I wonder what Quickstep's secret is? They really are the winningest team at the moment. They don't target the Tours, but mop up pretty much everything else. Their current success is pretty extraordinary.

They kind of follow the Sky technique (but without the criticism) having a roster full of incredible riders, many of which would be the protected rider for a lot of other teams. Having Stybar and Gilbert as super domestiques is a pretty great position to be in. And I think the success breeds success, they believe in each other, knowing that they're riding for each other, that they'll get their own opportunities at different events so they'll work hard for each other.

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