Milan San Remo 2022: exceptional win for Matej Mohori?

#Data story

The Slovenian rider performed a real tour de force in the final of San Remo to win the Primavera. At the heart of this success was a technical innovation: the telescopic seatpost

Before moving on to a data analysis of this victory, I will quickly introduce you to the scene and the hero of 19 March 2022.

The race: Milan San Remo

Milan San Remo is one of the most prestigious cycling races in the world and is one of?the 5 “monuments”, the 5 most famous one-day races?along with the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour of Lombardy. Winning it will put you directly in the gotha of the world of cycling through the front door.

Like every monument, the “classic of the classics” has its own particularities.?Almost 300 kilometers long, the first two-thirds of the course are not very selective, but?5,5km from the finish is the Poggio di San Remo, a final difficulty of 3,7 km at 4% average.?Nothing too big but enough to make some difference. The final victory is reserved for two profiles of riders:?the excellent punchers?who manage to make the difference on the Poggio?or the sprinters?who manage to get over the last climb and fight for the victory on the line.

The star : Matej Mohori?

The Slovenian rider is neither a puncher nor a sprinter, he should never have won the race. And yet he will create the exploit thanks to a well-tried strategy.

Matej Mohori? is one of the best descenders in the world. He takes all the risks in the descents to gain a few meters and make the break. Downhill is a delicate science, made of confidence, courage, and unconsciousness. Mohori? handles them to perfection and even invented the?“supertuck”?position, which consists of sitting on the top tube (photo below) to gain up to 15% aerodynamics and above all lower his center of gravity to gain confidence.?

This was Mohoric’s chance to make the break in the descent but unfortunately,?this position was forbidden by the UCI?because it was considered too dangerous. The rule is clear: riders must respect the three-leg rule: saddle, handlebars, pedals. This is where the Bahrain rider has been tricky.

The device: the telescopic seatpost

Mohori? then rested his winning strategy by incorporating technological innovation into his road bike.?The telescopic seatpost. Already in vogue in mountain biking circles, no one had used them because of their bulk and lack of practicality. Mohoric tested the device for months to make sure he could pull off the hold-up on the big day. He was able to use a high saddle position throughout the race to maximize his position on the flat and?then lower the saddle a few centimeters to lower his center of gravity and enjoy more stability on the downhill. At the top of the Poggio, he arrives in the leading group, takes ALL the risks on the descent (his gaps are close to sending him into the ditch), and manages to escape. At the 3 km mark, he has a 13,5 seconds advantage,?the rest is history.

The data analysis of his descent

Let’s get down to business, thanks to the telemetry data, let’s analyze the runs of Pogacar and Mohoric.?They were the two who led the group to the summit.?The descent is 3200 meters long with several sharp turns.?I have rated the main ones from 1 to 8.

I first cleaned up the data to have only the descent in question.?I plotted the speed curves of the two riders?one above the other with the average speed on the section. I detailed the turns to highlight the speed loss, which is directly correlated to the severity of the turn.

The difference in management on the descent is particularly striking when approaching the turns. I have circled in red to show the difference in slope, Pogacar’s is much smoother.?Mohoric brakes later and harder. You can guess the two mistakes he made when leaving the road. The values at turns 2 and 6 look like GPS bugs,?the average speed should probably be even higher.

The data also allows us to calculate the average speed on the descent. Mohoric is over 52,8 km/h while Pogacar is at 49,7 km/h.?The speed differential on the descent is 3.07 km/h, which is a difference of 13.5 seconds. This is a real gap for only 3200 meters of descent and the proof that races are also won on the downhill. He managed to dig the hole and not let his pursuers benefit from the suction.

At the finish, Mohori? showed his seatpost in his celebration.

But did it have such a big impact on his race??Let’s compare with the data from the year before.?We see on the graph below that the average speed is almost identical (GPS errors surely play a role in this). However, we can see that?the first part of the 2021 run is clearly more timid?between turns 1 and 2 and then 2 and 3.

I hope you enjoyed this article. Don’t hesitate to follow for more Performance Zoom !

I have a question of my own, Matej,?how many times did you repeat this descent?to master it so well?

Joseph Mestrallet, co-founder of?Enduraw