Intro:

John Degenkolb won the Milan-San Remo race on Sunday (22nd March), 12 months after a puncture wrecked his hopes of victory.

Script:

The 106th Milan-San Remo race, took off from an overcast Milan on Sunday morning.

There was an early break of 11 riders who built a lead of 10 minutes. But then Daniel Oss made a move away from the remaining seven in the lead peloton.

Daniel Oss and Geraint Thomas forged clear after the Cipressa and built a gap of 30 seconds with 11 kilometres remaining

That was before the peloton started to reel them in on the approach to the Poggio.

Team Sky's Thomas broke free on the ascent and looked to be well out of sight from the rest.

However, he was caught by Greg Van Avermaet shortly before the summit. He sped down the descent but could not shake off the others before the road flattened and prevent a mass finish.

Luca Paolini had led the chasing group to set the race up for his Katusha team-mate Alexander Kristoff who won the race 12 months ago.

Yet Kristoff hit the front slightly too soon and John Degenkolb timed his sprint to perfection to score the biggest win of his career.

Kristoff was almost a bike length behind the German, with Michael Matthews third ahead of Peter Sagan.

In last year's race, Degenkolb suffered a puncture when he felt he had a great chance of victory meaning his tears at the end were wholly understandable.