Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) won the 107th Milano-Torino on Wednesday, dropping Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) with a fierce late attack on the Superga climb, but was quick to play down what the result means for Milan-San Remo on Saturday.
"I think Milan-San Remo is very different. It's very explosive," Pidcock told Cycling Pro after the race. "It shows I'm in good shape, but being in good shape doesn't mean everything."
The 174km race was settled on the double ascent of Superga (4.9km at 9.1%), where Roglič forced the selection with an early attack before Pidcock launched the decisive move roughly 600 metres from the summit finish. He held a four-second gap to Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility), with Roglič a further second back in third. It was Pidcock's second win of 2026 and his most prestigious.
However, Pidcock described the day as "weird" and said his legs felt heavy throughout. "It almost felt like my first race of the year," he said. That admission complicates a straightforward form reading, even if the result itself was emphatic against a quality field.
Why Superga only partly translates to San Remo
Milano-Torino is a race of two halves: a flat 150km transfer followed by a pure climbing test. Milan-San Remo, at 298.2km, is the longest race on the calendar and asks a fundamentally different question. Survival through nearly seven hours of accumulating fatigue comes first. Then the race pivots on two short climbs, the Cipressa (5.6km at 4.1%, 21.6km from the finish) and the Poggio di Sanremo (3.7km at 3.7%, 5.5km from the finish), before a flat sprint on the Via Roma or a solo arrival from a late attack.
Superga proves Pidcock has the punch for the Poggio, and his mountain bike pedigree makes him one of the best technical descenders in the peloton. What it cannot prove is whether he can survive the Cipressa in the right position with a team that lacks the collective firepower of the super-favourites' squads.
Pidcock referenced that reality himself, recalling his 2025 race. "Last year I was in really good shape and then I was in the worst position. I crashed at the bottom of the Cipressa. So anything can happen."
The pecking order for Saturday still places Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), dominant at Strade Bianche on his season debut, and defending champion Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech), a two-time winner arriving with victories at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Tirreno-Adriatico, in a tier of their own. Below them, Pidcock now sits alongside Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), last year's runner-up, and Wout van Aert (Team Visma | Lease a Bike) as riders with clear paths to the podium but narrower margins for error.
Pinarello-Q36.5 protected Pidcock well through the final 40km on Wednesday, according to Velo, but San Remo's Cipressa is typically controlled by UAE and Alpecin, teams that can set a pace designed to isolate rivals long before the Poggio.
Pidcock arrives in San Remo with more evidence of form than he had a week ago. Whether that climbing sharpness can survive the chaos of the longest Monument remains to be seen.
Cover image credit: RCS Sport/Massimo Paolone/LaPresse
