Peter Sagan (Cannondale) entered this year's Milan-Sanremo as the most obvious favourite the race has seen for years. He ended up spending too much energy in the final 6-man lead group and was beaten in the sprint by surprise winner Gerald Ciolek (MTN - Qhukeba).

In the lead-up to Milan-Sanremo, people said that Sagan had nothing to win. His status as the major favourite meant that he could only lose in his attempt to win his first classic.

If this presumption is correct, the young Slovak is the big loser after an epic, cold and rainy edition of La Primavera. He played a major role in the final by leading a 4-man chase group back to leaders Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and Ian Stannard (Sky), and he took on most of the responsibility in the new front group. However, he had brought along fast finisher Gerald Ciolek, and that proved to be his undoing.

Sagan was clearly disappointed after the race.

"Maybe today wasn't my day,” Sagan explained. “Races are won and lost, but you always have to try. It was the first classic of the season, my first objective. I arrived to play my hand and I take it as a good signal looking ahead to the next one.”

The Slovakian's status as main favourite played an important role in the final part of the race. His fellow escapees looked to him to almost single-handedly close down a number of attempts. He took on this responsibility - in part maybe as a reaction to pre-race criticism from Fabian Cancellara regarding the way he had beaten the Swiss in stage 1 of last year's Tour.

According to himself, he ended up spending too much energy.

“It was a real strange race," he said. "It was freezing, snow, rain, and then the bus transfer. Surely Ciolek was a surprise, but San Remo is a race like this... you think about the favorites and then an outsider wins. Near the finish I expected a move from Cancellara and thought I was the fastest, but I underestimated the group. I worked too hard earlier and paid for that in my legs. I jumped too early in the sprint and paid for that, too. I'm disappointed, but it's also an experience. A second place in an important classic like Milan-San Remo is not bad."

Sports director impressed with team performance

Sagan's favourite status meant that his Cannondale team was expected to do the bulk of the work in the chase of the day's early escape. The team did just that and were constantly seen at the front of the peloton. In spite of this effort, the team managed to support Sagan until halfway up the Poggio climb, and teammate Moreno Moser took a huge turn on the front on the lower slopes of this legendary ascent to set up Sagan's final acceleration.

Sports director Mario Scirea was impressed by the team's performance.

“We have nothing to be upset about,” Scirea said. “Because on a day like this, everyone performed admirably. We raced the way we wanted to, we took our responsibility and tried to win. Peter had a great performance. The winner was the one least expected, but cycling is like that at times too!”

Sagan will now turn his attention to the cobbled classics with Gent-Wevelgem and the Tour of Flanders as his major goals. He will skip Paris-Roubaix before finishing off his classics season with an attempt to better last year's third place in Amstel Gold Race.