The exploit accomplished by Tadej Pogacar at the Milano-Sanremo last Saturday is enriched with details that are far from irrelevant. The Slovenian, delivering an extraordinary final stretch performance, secured his eleventh Monument classic victory of his career.

The victory seemed at one point as though it might slip away following the crash that, just a few kilometers before the Cipressa climb, sent the two-time world champion to the ground. However, once he confirmed he had not suffered serious injuries, he did not allow himself to be discouraged and, having remounted his bike, he delivered a display of such unreachable class that earned him entry into the honor roll of winners of the Spring World Championship.

To further magnify the significance of the exploit accomplished by the native of Klanec, it has emerged in recent hours that Pogacar achieved his winning feat on a bike that, following the tumble he experienced, was far from being in perfect condition.

"After the finish we realized that Tadej had tackled the final stretch with a cracked frame" revealed Boštjan Kavčnik, the mechanic of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG superstar, to Delo.si, before explaining in detail what effects the world champion's crash had on his machine.

"Tadej crashed on the left side, where the derailleur isn't located, but this activated the 'crash mode'. He reset it himself and, not noticing anything else unusual, we decided not to change the bike: however, the rear triangle was damaged, but fortunately it held up, and moreover one of the brake discs was rubbing against the braking surface" Kavčnik recounted, adding details that make what Pogacar accomplished in the closing kilometers of the Sanremo even more surreal.

"If he had known what condition the bike was in, he would never have tackled the descent so aggressively in an attempt to push Tom Pidcock to the limit" admitted the mechanic, not hiding his own astonishment at how Pogacar interpreted the final stretch despite the problems his special bike had.

These issues, in fact, did not prevent him from setting the new Cipressa climbing record and the eighth fastest combined time on the Poggio's climb and descent sections—stretches where the class of '98, in absolute racing trance, never held back, setting a pace that only Pidcock and, partially, van der Poel managed to match.

Both of them, however, ultimately could do nothing against the Slovenian's power and his desire to raise his arms to the sky at the end of a race that, considering everything that happened, Kavčnik (like all of us) legitimately labeled as "special".