Team Katusha gave its all in Milano-Sanremo yesterday to avoid a sprint finish, cumulating with the attack of Italian Champion Filippo Pozzato in the final kilometre. He failed to repeat his 2006 win and the sprint went to Oscar Freire, but it was an impressive display of force following nearly 300 kilometres of racing.

“Everyone wants to make a hard race, but then they don’t use their men,” Pozzato told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “Katusha committed itself from the start and, obviously, I did not have the team-mates in the finale. Liquigas didn’t mind, they wanted to take [Daniele] Bennati to the sprint. It would have been better, though, if my rivals would have helped to rip apart the group and eliminate the sprinters.”

Katusha drove the peloton over Le Mànie, it sent Alexandr Kolobnev attacking on the Cipressa, then Serguei Ivanov and finally, after the Poggio, Pozzato played his cards. He attacked on the back of an acceleration by Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo), lasting over one kilometre, caught with 1200 metres to race.

“I wanted to wait a little longer and start closer to the line, but the group slowed down, bunched up and I thought that it was the right moment to play my cards. Against these sprinters there was no hope, the only possibility was an attack. Unfortunately, they chased hard.”

The sprinters lined up once they nullified Pozzato’s attack: Bennati, Freire, Tom Boonen… Bennati faded early and Boonen had no answer to Freire.

“My legs were not how I wanted in the finale,” continued Pozzato. “We used up a lot and even Boonen was tired. It gives me confidence the strongest won.”

In addition to his 2006 win, Pozzato finished second in 2008 behind Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank).

He placed fourth in Strade Bianche in early March, but has yet to win this year. Last year, he won the Belgian E3 Prijs, a stage of the Driedaagse De Panne, the Italian Championships, the Giro del Veneto and the Memorial Cimurri.

Pozzato heads north this week ahead of the next series of classics: E3 Prijs, Gent-Wevelgem, Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix.