This ongoing Sunday is good, or rather not perfect, devoid of other sentiments, for a Saturday of 'Sanremo' recurrence. An extreme resource of a winning Holland like our heartbeats, it comes to mind today, after barely metabolizing with a wise dose of beta-blocker for the adrenergic stress induced yesterday by an extraordinary finale of how our putative homeland - Holland tres fantastique, not Naples, not Italy - has already written something insurmountable at the Sanremo finish line. At the finish line of the 'Milan - Sanremo' as they say in De Telegraaf, where yesterday Mathieu Van der Poel, a Dutchman from the Low Countries, won for the second time in three years, in a race finish where Milan loses its final 'o'.

This ongoing Sunday, which we are running only to accelerate the evening's precipice, returns to us intact the 'Sanremo' of 1985 in emotion and triple verdict like a triumvirate. There where Hennie Kuiper brilliantly overtook his teammate in 'Verandalux' Teun Van Vliet, just reached after the Poggio, where he flattens the path on the Aurelia, in a breath of anticipation. Third, do you remember?, but we don't know who you are, Silvano Riccò: a lesser Riccò, or perhaps just a better one.

First Kuiper, and we praise him while alive, because men, and not just sports men, are honored when they are able to read and defend themselves, not after, when buried too easily... Second Van Vliet, third Riccò. We return the primacy of heart to that podium, we of Holland no longer below sea level, no longer the Low Countries. Kuiper, among other things, an Olympic champion and world champion already of 'Flanders' and 'Roubaix' and 'Lombardia', was 36 years old at his last career success, on March 16, 1985. Van Vliet, much younger, would not race much beyond. Riccò remains very dear to us, how is he today?, 'Dromedary' jersey then and we don't know for how long.

First and second were the Dutch, tulips not ephemeral if they resist four decades later at least because of us, we had like them and all of you 40 years fewer of springs and autumns. The emblematic 'Verandalux' jersey already, shared. If only there were still a bow window, 'Verandalux', or a spring garden without building abuses and wounded hearts, at least, in our endless Sanremo season.