If you want to describe Matej Mohorič’s ride with a cycling philosophy, a French proverb might help: “Ça passe ou ça casse”. A sentence that can probably best be translated as follows for racing cyclists: Either it hits – or it hits me.
Milan – San Remo, the 300-kilometer race that leads from industrial northern Italy to the sun, to the Mediterranean Sea, is the first of the Five Monuments of the Year, cycling’s most important one-day classics. In the past few years, if you were only interested in the sport, you could actually only tune in in the last ten minutes of the event. By then the hopeless breakaway group had been captured, the peloton was compact and then Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe attacked in the Poggio, the short climb before San Remo. Alaphilippe was then caught by a more or less large group and a sprint ensued. This year, however, the reigning world champion was absent due to bronchitis.
Instead, the course of the race was turned upside down. Much earlier, in the Cipressa, the toughest climb on the route, Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar instructed his colleagues from the UAE Team Emirates to pick up the pace. The Jumbo-Visma team of three-time Vuelta winner Primoz Roglič and daily favorite Wout van Aert also took part in the work. It could have been a foretaste of what will bloom on the tour in summer: a duel between two teams in white and yellow jerseys – with two outstanding Slovenes.
Double Tour winner Pogačar, who at 23 is still one of the youngsters, has already had frightening successes this spring. At the Strade Bianche one-day race, he launched an attack 50 kilometers from the finish and was never seen again. Last week he also gave the competition no chance in the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race. Pogačar seems even more dominant this year, even more confident and crushing the rest of the peloton than before.
Mohorič leaves as if he were sitting at the game console
With this self-confidence, the Slovenian then attacked the last climb, the Poggio. Once, twice, three times. But he was followed again and again by the strong, multiple cross-country champions van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel, who put more horsepower on the home straight than the Pogačar. At the beginning of the downhill he took the lead for a short time – until a compatriot Matej Mohorič threw himself past him with a willingness to take risks, as if he were not in the saddle but sitting in front of the game console.
Mohorič has accomplished something even rarer than winning an Olympic gold medal. A kind of sitting position was named after him. Mohorič already noticed when he was a junior that he didn’t sit on the saddle during the descent, but rested his sit bones on the top tube of the frame, the tip of the saddle pressed into his back. So he made his body so small that he minimized wind resistance. Later, many copied this downhill style. However, the world association UCI banned the “Mohorič position” from the 2021 season on the grounds that it represented a dangerous example for young people.
Despite being in a safe position, Mohorič twice almost fell into the ditch on the Poggio descent, but saved himself with impressive steering skills. Arrived on the last flat section, the Via Roma, he put on a thick gear ratio and pedaled no longer fluently, but with maximum power. The pursuers, in turn, did not agree on a joint hunt. The group was too big and the balance of power in the sprint was too different. In the last left turn, the chain slipped through the leading Slovenian, but he caught it again. Frenchman Anthony Turgis, who had been torn from behind, almost caught up with him in the last meters.
Mohorič pointed to his saddle as he cheered at the finish line. In order to get the best possible aerodynamic result on the descent, Mohorič has installed an adjustable seat post: “I could now adjust myself with a finger movement on the switch whether I sit lower or higher. On the one hand, this ensures a more aerodynamic position and, on the other hand, more safety , when I put the saddle back up,” said Mohoric after the race.
Mohorič is also known for unusual victory poses. Last year, after winning his second stage of the Tour de France, he put his index finger in front of his mouth. Doping experts had previously questioned the performance of Mohorič, the Slovenians and Mohorič’s team Bahrain Victorious. He wanted them to stop this, the Slovenian justified his jubilation. Doping hunter Antoine Vayer said after the SZ incident that Mohorič was playing like a “mafia boss”: “Just like Lance Armstrong once did.”