Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) is back for a third try at Milan-San Remo, and is still hunting a victory at the monumental 289km race, or any Monument for that matter. He has tucked away lessons learned and expected to regain top form from early March in his "fight for the podium".
In 2021 he scored a signature win at the 223.5km Clásica San Sebastián, turning heads for his abilities in the long one-day races rather than just an all-rounder in stage races. It is not the distance of Milan-San Remo that is the most daunting task but knowing when to fire the after-burners of his engine before the final dash on Via Roma.
"The goal is to land on the podium. It's not just me that's that's going to do so tomorrow, but yeah, I'd definitely like to be able to follow at least top five over the Poggio. And if I can be there in top five, then I believe I can fight for the podium. So it's not an easy thing to do, but that's what I'll be aiming for," Powless told media, including Cyclingnews, at Friday's team presentation at Piazza della Vittoria in Pavia.
It is a third trip to the opening Monument of the season for the 28-year-old US rider, his first in 2018 as a first-year WorldTour rider with LottoNL-Jumbo. When he returned in 2023 with EF Eduction, he had added a label as a rising star for one-day races having scored that signature win at Clásica San Sebastián. It was no fluke, he was eighth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2022.
It was his 2023 ride at Milan-San Remo, he showed great promise. He was in contention with 22km to go as a group cleared the top of the Cipressa. It across the Poggio that Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) made his move, pulling away to win clear of Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), and that trio put in 11 seconds to seven others, which included Powless, who finished seventh.
Powless may not have a ton of experience in La Classicissima, but he knows enough about the Cipressa, with 22.3km to go, and the Poggio, with just under 6km remaining, that decisive attacks can occur on both the climbs and descents.
"You can't wait to react. I think if you're in position, you just have to go," he said emphatically. "The thing that makes Milano-Sanremo special is that you know exactly where the moves are going to come and when.
"You just have to try your best not to lose the drafts, because you have to push a lot more if you're the one on the front on a climb like the Poggio, because we're going 40k an hour up the climb. At those speeds, it's 50, 60, 70 watts easier in the wheel, so as soon as you lose the wheel, and you have to push that yourself, your' probably out of the game.
"But yeah, it's all just going to depend on who can jump on [Pogačar's] wheel first, and who can stay in the draft and maybe set up a sneaky counter attack."
He saw the decisive jumps firsthand in 2023, and his former teammate Alberto Bettiol experienced the moves in 2024, finishing fifth behind winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Pogačar taking third.
"I basically learned how quickly that climb goes," Powless said about the Poggio di Sanremo at just 3.7km in length. "When your adrenaline is pumping, you feel like it's a long way to go when you hit the start at the bottom. But by the time the real attack starts, there's only two minutes left [of the climb], so there's really no time to hesitate or think someone else can close it.
"Last time, I saw a gap starting to open and I gambled for maybe five seconds that somebody else would close it and those five seconds are really the ones that kept me out of the front group.
"If you have legs, you just have to go."
He comes in to Milan-San Remo with 15 days of racing in his legs, his best finish fourth at Trofeo Laigueglio. Then he raced Paris-Nice, but felt his performance was "poor", going 31st in the overall and the only top 10 on a stage coming in the team time trial.
"I was just frozen every day," he said about enduring the cold temperatures and rain across the eight days at the French stage race.
"Hopefully, I'll be feeling the legs I had pre-Paris-Nice here tomorrow."
