The decision was made on the 199 km long flat track only in the final spurt. The fastest in it was the British Mark Cavendish ahead of the Frenchman Nacer Bouhani (Arkéa-Samsic) and Nór Alexandr Kristoff (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert).
German Max Kanter (Movistar) also finished ahead of Sagan, who resigned from the Tirreno – Adriatico stage race last week, but is already fit.
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Milan – Turin is one of the oldest cycling events, the 103rd year took place on Wednesday. Cavendish is the first British to control him. The 36-year-old driver of the Quick-Step Alpha Viny team also became the oldest winner of this classic. In Rivoli, a suburb of Turin, he scored a 159th career victory.
About 20 km before the finish, the all-day escape of the trio Daniel Viegas, Martin Marcellusi and Juan Diego Alba ended.
Then Ben-Healy from the Education-EasyPost team tried a separate ride, but four kilometers before the tape, the peloton rejoined and the leading rungs were divided among the sprinters.
Read also Triumphs of escape. Sagan’s brave colleague also shuddered at him
Although Sagan was in the foreground, he remained too closed at the end and did not reach the podium.
“I am just happy to have it today. It’s unbelievable how well my teammates started the sprint. I have already won Milan – San Remo in my career, now I have succeeded here as well and I am glad that my name has been added to the list of winners next to the big names, “said Cavendish at the finish.
The opening monument will miss his teammate, two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe. The Frenchwoman suffers from fever and has bronchitis, according to the cyclingnews.com portal.
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As confirmed by his Belgian employer on Wednesday, sprint Fabio Jakobsen was added to the team as a replacement, despite the fact that his victory is not expected.
Alaphilippe won the famous classic in 2019. He started it in the previous five years without interruption.
Neither the winner of 2009 Cavendish nor Yves Lampaert, who had problems at Paris-Nice, missed the place in the seven-member nomination of Quick-Step.
Andrea Bagioli, Davide Ballerini, Mattia Cattaneo, Mikkel Honore, Fabio Jakobsen, Florian Senechal and Zdeněk Štybar joined the team.
Milan – Turin (199 km):
1. Mark Cavendish (Great Britain / Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) 4:31:22, 2. Nacer Bouhanni (Fr./Arkéa-Samsic), 3. Alexander Kristoff (Norway / Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), 4. Max Kanter (Nem. (Movistar), 5. Peter SAGAN (SR / TotalEnergies), 6. Andrea Vendrame (Tal./AG2R Citroën), 7. Michael Mörköv (Dán. / Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), 8. Ben Swift (Great / Innes Grenadiers), 9th Simone Consonni (Tal.Cofidis), 10th Biniam Girmay (Erit./Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert) – all the same time as the winner
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