The Italian fast continues and the number of German victories in Sanremo extends to seven: on the historic finish line in via Roma it is John Degenkolb who makes the coup by burning Alexander Kristoff in the sprint, the Norwegian who had won last year, and the Australian Michael Matthews. Peter Sagan is only fourth after deluding his patron, the Russian tycoon Oleg Tinkov, that he can finally seize a victory that would repay him for the very high salary offered to the Slovak. Fifth and first of the Italians is Bonifazio. Fabian Cancellara is off the podium this time, finishing only seventh – also behind Nacer Bouhanni – in the final rush of about thirty riders.
As expected, the race is decided on the Poggio and in the subsequent dive on Sanremo. The first to cross the hill is a Sky man, the British Geraint Thomas who freed himself in the final hairpin bends of Daniel Oss from Trentino. But the grainy group in single file is there in a handful of seconds. To reach Thomas and climb over him first is the Belgian Greg Van Avermaet. In the downhill it's an exciting tussle with almost all the favorites coming close.
Not far from the former we also see that Spanish fox Alejandro Valverde, a warrior who always gives everything even if he rarely wins. Only Nibali, Cavendish and Greipel now seem out of the game. Then there is also the bad luck with Gilbert, Stybar, Ciolek and the world champion Kwiatkowski to be eliminated, when they were climbing up to the top positions due to a crash that hurled them dangerously on the side of the road bordered by a low wall.
The flat stretch no longer changes the games entrusted to the volatone. A finish at over 50 km per hour that will reward Degenlkob, the fourth German to write his name in the roll of honor of the spring classic after Rudy Altig, the four-time winner Erik Zabel and Gerald Ciolek. "Unbelievable", incredible, was the howl of joy, repeatedly repeated to the microphones after the race, by the Giant-Alpecin sprinter, whose success had also been foreseen by Marcel Kittel, his teammate, in fact the strongest sprinter around according to the results in the last season with four stage victories in the Tour and two victories in the Giro.
Kittel was the only big sprinter once again absent in this Sanremo, who never saw him at the starting line. He had excluded himself believing that his team should bet everything on Degenkolb, who had already raced the Sanremo four times. A perfectly apt choice.
