Should van der Poel fear the powerful Ganna in Sanremo? "I'm not impressed"

The riders will start the fifth stage in lovely sunshine, and the temperature will rise to almost twenty degrees Celsius. Van der Poel is delighted. "I think everyone would prefer these conditions to the ones we've had the past two days," he laughs to Het Laatste Nieuws. On Thursday, he still came in third in the terrible weather, with two other Dutch riders on the podium. "Yesterday's weather was also a mix of Dutch and Belgian, so it was another fairly grueling stage," as Eurosport and others noted.

The fifth stage of the Italian race takes the riders to a hilly finale, where two vicious climbs determine the strongest. It is a bit like the stage of the 2023 edition, where Van der Poel won brilliantly. "Mind you, that was from an early breakaway. Estimating how difficult it is and what the climbers will do today is difficult."

In the final kilometers of stage four, Van der Poel tried to break away, but a powerful Filippo Ganna personally closed the gap. That doesn't surprise Van der Poel. "I think he's in pretty good shape, but I'm not impressed. I think everyone knows how strong Ganna is as a cyclist, and he's also been close a few times in Sanremo, so he's someone worth keeping an eye on."

Due to his efforts over the past two days and the terrible weather, Van der Poel will have to wait and see if he can compete for the win on Friday. "The past two days have taken their toll with the bad weather. They were just two difficult stages, so we'll see how the legs feel today."

The conditions in Italy were sometimes reminiscent of the cycling World Championships in Harrogate, where Van der Poel failed in the final due to cold and hunger in 2019. "I haven't experienced this kind of weather often." Yesterday, half the peloton also stopped to change clothes by the car, so I think it was a bit the same for everyone. The cold had a significant impact on his performance. If I look at the sprint statistics, there wasn't much energy left, but I think that applied to everyone."