Frenchman ARNAUD DEMARE conquered Sanremo with an imperial sprint, but without (for him) the Cipressa: fact documented by hastily erased evidence, reported by only two other riders among the dozens who attended the “scene”, with the complicity of the deafening silence of the usual UCI on the facts of the matter.

PETER SAGAN has grown up: no longer subject to long distances, he dominated Gent and Flanders.

With the aid (not decisive, but significant) of Kwiatkow-SKY, he managed to get a few seconds gap off Fabian CANCELLARA; a gap that the Swiss rider failed to cover over the last 15 km of the windswept plains. The two athletes battled each other for a quarter of an hour in a thrilling duel on the edge of 50km/h separated by 12-14 seconds: the Czech pushing at 105-110RPM, the Swiss on slightly lower cadences; had he had the same form of a few years ago, he would have closed on his opponent in just a couple of kilometers.

Exciting and very uncertain, inevitably conditioned by the usual crashes, Paris-Roubaix offered a rustic duel in the final, truly a violent display of "bludgeons" to the already proven muscle fibers: an impetuous yet too generous “TOM BOONEN Vs All-the-others” tried and almost achieved a historical quintet on the rough pavements of the legendary velodrome.

Bravo to MATHEW HAYMAN, who undoubtedly deserved the victory as much as any worthy winner.

Legs and brain allowed the talented and always underestimated Enrico GASPAROTTO to triumph in his second Amstel, with an impeccable conduct of the race and timing: as always too isolated from his teammates in the decisive moments, he knew by experience how to get along fine without any help.

The immense and perhaps undeserved talent of ALEJANDRO VALVERDE allowed him to knock out a victory in the Flèche Wallonne with one single one blow (2’48" was his time on the last Km of the Muur de Huy), but then kind of deserted him in a freezing cold and a bit “bland” Liege-Bastogne-Liege.