'It still gives me goosebumps' - Jasper Stuyven on odds-defying victory at 2021 Milan-San Remo

Published 16/03/2022 at 11:45 GMT

Trek-Segafredo's Jasper Stuyven caught the favourites napping at last year's Milan-San Remo, when he attacked on the Poggio and held on to take victory on the Via Roma. In an interview for the Cycle Show, he looks back on how he sprung his surprise and looks forward to this Saturday's edition. Can he do it again? Don't rule it out.

'It still gives me goosebumps' - Stuyven on odds-defying victory at 2021 Milan-San Remo

It has been almost a whole year since Jasper Stuyven's monumental, odds-defying Milan-San Remo victory. The Belgian rider doesn’t mind admitting that watching the finish “still gives me goosebumps".

The manner of his victory was similar to that of former team-mate Vincenzo Nibali in 2018, and not unlike Julian Alaphilippe’s a year later.

“We reached the top of the Poggio and it was not only Caleb [Ewan] but also Wout [van Aert] and Mathieu [van der Poel] all looking at each other. I just had to grab that opportunity to be a bit of an outsider there.” Stuyven grabbed it, and he was gone.

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“I knew on the downhill that was the chance that I should look for, then when I went, and I saw that I had the gap, with no one in the wheel I just knew it's gonna be [the win] or I’m gonna be last of the group. That's the game you play, and it worked out.”

As the road flattened out and with the favourites closing fast, Soren Kragh Anderson (Team DSM) hopped across the gap to join Stuyven for the final kilometre. The Dane seemed prepared to pull them both to the line. With the road running out, Stuyven had struggled to make sense of the Dane’s tactics.

“I didn't know his gameplan, and then when he kept going, I didn't know… Is he gonna ask me to pull again? What do I do in that situation? Because they're really close behind.”

'Jasper was the one who took the opportunity' - Wiggins on Stuyven's win

Kragh Anderson's efforts gave Stuyven time to recover, ready his sprint and then, with the fastest men in the west looming down on them, punch his way to a famous victory on the Via Roma.

When asked what it feels like to win La Primavera, Stuyven describes being overcome with a sense of zen. “It's like you're alone in the world,” he says. “Like happiness, but with nothing else in your mind.”

Looking ahead to this Saturday’s edition of the race, Stuyven talks about a few of the different variables that make Milan-San Remo, as the saying goes, one of the easiest races to finish, but one of the hardest to win.

“How will the weather be?” he wonders. “How will other teams be? Who are the favourites before the race? Will there again be a big group going over the Poggio, leaving everyone behind, or only two guys dropping everyone else? There’s a lot of ifs. They’re all questions we don't know yet.”

Despite last year’s success, the bookies rate Stuven’s chances at around 25/1, way down on the favourite Wout Van Aert, equal with Matej Mohoric and behind even Soren Kragh Anderson.

He’s not prepared to rule it out himself, though.

“Maybe the biggest surprise is that I’ll get to exactly the same point,” he said.