Tadej Pogačar has spent a sizeable chunk of his recent winters training along the Italian Riviera, as part of his almost evangelical mission to add Milan-Sanremo to his bulging, history-making palmares.

But now, following his enthralling, long-awaited triumph at La Primavera on Saturday, the world champion has promised his partner, fellow pro cyclist Urška Žigart, that he will now avoid training along the race’s notoriously dangerous coastal route, after criticising the “criminal” actions of the area’s motorists.

In an Instagram post shared on Sunday, thanking his teammates, rivals, and friends, Pogačar added further fuel to the rumours that he’s planning on taking an extended Sanremo sabbatical by specifically addressing Žigart and writing: “I promise I will stay away from those roads for a while”.

The four-time Tour de France winner expanded on the safety risks involved in training along the Ligurian coast’s main roads on a weekly basis in his post-race press conference.

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2026 Milan-Sanremo peloton rides along the Ligurian coast (Image Credit: Fabio Ferrari/LaPresse)

“It’s quite a relief to finally win it. It’s been many years of training around here, and I will miss it,” he said. “Now I can stop going to Sanremo every week or even two times a week to train. It’s really hard mentally to go training to Sanremo all winter.”

He continued: “You risk your life on every training ride that you do here. No offence, but on Italian roads, sometimes the traffic is a little bit criminal.”

Nevertheless, Pogačar acknowledged that some work is currently being done to create safe cycling infrastructure along the coast, though training on the race route itself will always involve mingling with motorists.

“They’re making nice bike paths, so maybe in a few years, it will be really nice coast rides,” he said.

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Tadej Pogačar and Tom Pidcock, 2026 Milan-Sanremo (Image Credit: Fabio Ferrari/LaPresse)

The dangers faced by cyclists riding on Italy’s roads have been raised extensively in recent years, especially in the wake of the deaths of high-profile professionals Michele Scarponi and Davide Rebellin, which rocked the Italian cycling community, the lorry driver responsible for Rebellin’s death having been jailed for four years in October 2024.

Last year, the president of the Italian Cycling Federation questioned attitudes towards cyclists and blamed road users’ impatience and intolerance for putting bicycle riders in danger, after a grim collision in Puglia last August that left three cyclists dead.

At the time of Cordiano Dagnoni’s comments, the number of cyclists to die on Italy’s roads in 2025 had reached 130, a “record” rate for the time of year.

“Motorists will slow down if they are behind a tractor but for some reason cannot stand to slow down for cyclists and increasingly resort to insults,” he said. “Motorists don’t want to lose a minute, but don’t understand that thanks to their driving a cyclist could lose their life.

“Italy is pushing green transport like bicycling but has forgotten to install the bike lanes you see in northern Europe, and I don’t just mean painted lines on the road.”

> “Motorists don’t want to lose a minute”: Italian Cycling Federation blames rising deaths on impatient drivers who “cannot stand to slow down for cyclists”

In January 2025, 19-year-old Continental-level rider Sara Piffer was training with her brother in the northern Italian region of Trentino when she was fatally struck. Her father, Lorenzo, told the press that Italy’s roads are a “Wild West”.

“I’d say we need more common sense. Unfortunately, they always realise it too late. Maybe to gain that minute they put other people’s lives at risk. I see things getting worse on the roads,” he reacted.

Last month, Italian teenager Francesco Mazzoleni, who was aiming to turn pro while racing for GoodShop Team Yoyogurt, was killed by a driver while training on home roads, just three weeks before his 19th birthday.

And in December, the third-tier S.C. Padovani Polo Cherry Bank team called on motorists to show more “respect” to cyclists, following a horrific incident which saw a passing driver fire two shots at the squad’s riders in an apparent, and potentially catastrophic, act of road rage, before fleeing the scene.

The shocking attack, which miraculously resulted in no injuries, took place as the team’s riders were training on the SS12 road just outside Dolcè, near Lake Garda in northern Italy as part of their pre-Christmas training camp, the driver – described as having a “general hatred” of cyclists – arrested a few days later.