Michal Kwiatkowski didn’t just come just come away from Milan-San Remo with a thrilling victory in yesterday’s race – he also bagged the Strava KOM on the race’s final climb, the Poggio.
Team Sky’s former world champion followed a move on the ascent from the man who succeeded him in the rainbow jersey, Peter Sagan of Boara-Hansgrohe, with Quick Step Floors rider Julien Alaphilippe completing the trio who contested the win.
The 108th edition of the Monument produced an astonishingly close finish – and taking a close look at the photo above, we can’t help wondering whether that dropped chain on Sagan’s bike as he sprinted for the line was the difference between victory and defeat for the Slovak.
Kwiatkowski’s power output on the climb was an astonishing 443 watts for 5 mins 47 secs with the speed, power and heart rate graphs below clearly showing the moment he put a huge effort in to bridge across to Sagan.
Kudos, indeed.
It's Kwiatowski's second big win in Italy in a fortnight following his victory earlier this month at Strade Bianche, which he also posted to Strava.
> Kwiatkowski posts his winning ride at Strade Bianche to Strava
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.