The 115th edition of the longest classic of the season will go down as the fastest ever. Saturday morning, after an early start in Pavia, the situation in the race remained unchanged for hours. The peloton constantly kept the ten-member leading group within reach.

After the Cipressa, the penultimate climb of the day, the leading group was caught and Kooij was still cleverly on the front rows of the thinned out peloton. "As expected, the pace was set very high on the Cipressa. I really was on my limit, but I still managed to survive”, Kooij analysed afterwards. "I also did well on the Poggio. But when the strongest riders accelerated, I no longer had the legs.” In the end, Jasper Philipsen won the sprint of the elite group and the 22-year-old rider from Team Visma | Lease a Bike managed to position himself on the fourteenth spot.

Sports director Maarten Wynants looks back on the Italian one-day race with mixed feelings. “Our leader Christophe Laporte felt a bit ill. On the first climb we already saw it was going to be difficult for him. Ultimately, Olav was exactly where he needed to be in the final, but Tadej Pogacar's second attack was too powerful for him. There is absolutely no shame in that for Olav.”

“You then hope that the pace in front goes down a bit, but that didn't happen. We have to be satisfied with a fourteenth place for Olav. That's just a very impressive performance in your first monument”, Wynants believes. "Of course, as a team we are disappointed that we didn't get a top result here today. But the way Olav showed himself here, gives high hopes for the future."

With four victories already and the fourteenth place in Milan-Sanremo, Kooij is enjoying a strong opening to his cycling season. The Dutch rider's debut in a cycling monument gives appetite for more. "I definitely want to return here one day and sprint for victory, just like Philipsen did today”, Kooij said. "I am happy that I was able to survive the Cipressa. This race once again illustrates the development I am going through."