Van der Poel and Van Aert give their verdict after seven days of Tirreno-Adriatico

‘I’m as ready as I can be for the classics that are coming,’ Van Aert said clearly before the start of the seventh Tirreno stage in an interview with Eurosport. ‘After my injury in the winter I tried to recover and prepare as well as possible. I’m happy with where I am now. Tirreno has been a good week. I needed race days and there were a few tough ones in there.’

‘Hopefully I’ll get better from this. I definitely believe a podium in Milan-Sanremo is possible,’ said the Belgian of Visma | Lease a Bike, who had no interest in contesting the sprint in the final stage. ‘It will be a fast sprint after a relatively easier day, so it will probably be between the riders we already saw in the earlier sprints.’

Instead of sprinting, Van Aert did take on a lead-out role, although not for the final bunch sprint. That sprint was won by Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), while Van Aert had already emptied himself 45 kilometres earlier for Matteo Jorgenson. The American collected three bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint and moved from third to second in the final general classification.

Van der Poel was also seen at the front during the final Tirreno stage, particularly on the last climb of the race. Together with his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates, he significantly reduced the peloton to roughly thirty riders. ‘We had the plan to drop a few sprinters on the climb and make it hurt,’ he explained afterwards in an interview with VTM. ‘We expected they might come back, but we wanted them to suffer at least once.’

‘As a team we executed that well. We had a plan and we tried to carry it out,’ Van der Poel said. However, he did not get to see team leader Jasper Philipsen contest the sprint after a crash in the closing kilometres. ‘I saw Jasper and Edward (Planckaert) on the ground, although at first it didn’t look too serious. Hopefully the damage isn’t too bad, but it’s definitely a missed opportunity for Jasper.’

For Van der Poel himself, the final stage provided one more valuable effort. ‘I also had a good feeling today. Now it’s a few days of calm recovery, because Tirreno is always a tough week. After that we’ll be completely ready for Sanremo.’ ‘I’ll do a bit of training in Belgium, although not much anymore—just a few efforts. Apart from that, we’ll mainly focus on recovery.’

And Philipsen? He is also expected to line up for Milan-Sanremo. ‘Everything is okay,’ team manager Christoph Roodhooft said afterwards. Philipsen and Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) reportedly became entangled with their handlebars during the crash.