Jonathan Milan, new twist on the'horizon
Jonathan Milan is ready to raise the bar. Reduced by three winning sprints at the UAE Tour and a start to the season marked by five overall successes, the Lidl-Trek sprinter from Friuli has updated his calendar with a clear objective: to measure himself against his rivals on the difficult roads of Flanders. No longer just sprints and fast stages, then, but a path of growth that passes through the northern classics, where the cobblestones are unforgiving and endurance rewards more than sprinting in acceleration.
Milan will in fact be at the start of the Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, a classic that will close, on Sunday, March 1, the first Flemish weekend of the season. It is a race that does not present great difficulties but precisely for this reason it is perfect for accumulating experience. The Friulian has then added to his calendar also the Dwars Door Vlaanderen (April 1), a tougher appointment full of walls, which will be a decidedly probing test ahead of Paris-Roubaix (April 12), another race in which Milan wants to be a protagonist.
In his career, Milan has won in Belgium only in settings without cobbles, winning the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen and two stages of the Renewi Tour. Now, abetted by Pedersen’s absence and his brilliant condition, Lidl-Trek is asking him for a quantum leap. Kuurne, where a year ago he finished sixth in the sprint won by Philipsen, is a concrete goal, then there will be Tirreno-Adriatico (March 9-15), Milan-San Remo (March 21), the revamped Ghent-Wevelgem (March 29) and finally Dwars.
Everything leads to one of the queen races of the cycling spring, Paris-Roubaix: Milan has raced it four times but has never shined, so much so that he will only reach the finish line, in the famous velodrome of the resort on the border between France and Belgium, in 2024. The goal is to improve, find a feeling for the cobblestones and, who knows, find another outstanding result in his already brilliant career.
A class of 2000, born in Tolmezzo and raised in nearby Buja, Jonathan Milan has twice won the points classification at the Giro d’Italia and once at the Tour, with four stage wins in the Corsa Rosa and two in the Grande Boucle. Also successfully active on the track, he was world and European champion in the individual pursuit, while in the team pursuit he won, in addition to the continental and rainbow titles, the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo.
