The highest-tier peloton will line up in Genoa alongside the picturesque coast of the Mediterranean for what’s going to mark a historic second in ladies’s biking, the return of Milan-San Remo Girls on Saturday, March 22.
It has been 20 years for the reason that ladies’s area has been provided the chance to compete within the race that was previously known as La Primavera Rosa held from 1999 to 2005.
Organised by RCS Sport, the comeback of the ladies’s model of Milan-San Remo now turns into the primary of 4 Monuments provided to the ladies’s peloton, alongside the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix Femmes and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. RCS Sport additionally organise the fifth and remaining Monument of the season – Il Lombardia – and has said their intent to supply a ladies’s race there within the close to future as effectively.
The 156km route from Genoa to San Remo for the revived Milan-San Remo race will see the peloton compete alongside the scenic shoreline earlier than tackling the long-lasting Cipressa and Poggio climbs, which are more likely to determine how the ultimate performs out.
Given that is the primary version since 2005, there isn’t a outcomes path readily available to point simply who excels at this specific occasion however Cyclingnews has chosen among the key riders to look at by choosing out these with the traits and type that would effectively see them chasing victory in San Remo.
Additionally, look out for the favourites evaluation for the lads’s Milan-San Remo.
Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime)
Lotte Kopecky has made no secrets and techniques concerning the adjustments she has made to her programme this yr with a season’s begin – and focus – on Milan-San Remo earlier than she turns to a choice of Spring Classics forward of her function as a GC contender on the Tour de France.
The 2-time consecutive World Champion will line up as one of many standout favourites, even when she has not but toed the beginning line this season. The Belgian will likely be backed by a strong SD Worx-Protime workforce that features one other potential winner in Lorena Wiebes.
Kopecky’s strengths in one-day races and on climbs imply that she will likely be eyeing the difficult Poggio as a possible place to make her transfer. She has said that Milan-San Remo, and particularly its finale, has been her favorite race to look at on the lads’s calendar over time. Now it’s her time to point out her explosive energy as she hunts for victory within the first ladies’s version since 2005.
Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ)
Maybe Kopecky’s greatest rival is Demi Vollering, who traces up because the outright favorite given her successful begin to the season racing within the colors of her new workforce FDJ-SUEZ.
As former teammates, Vollering and Kopecky will know one another’s strengths and weaknesses and can seemingly be evenly matched on a course like Milan-San Remo. Vollering could have the sting, nonetheless, on condition that she began her season earlier and has a stage race and three one-day races already beneath her belt.
She additionally got here out on high with the general victory at Setmana Valenciana, completed third at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and secured an exciting victory at Strade Bianche.
It was her efficiency on the punishingly-steep Santa Caterina climb resulting in the long-lasting entrance into Piazza del Campo final weekend that marks her because the rider to beat after she punched up the ascent distancing her former teammate, coach, sports activities director and now rival Anna van der Breggen to take the victory in Siena.
It’s unlikely that anybody might drop Vollering on the ultimate climbs into San Remo, and she or he is a tactically savvy rider who has a strong dash, too. That imply’s with assist from riders like Juliette Labous and Ally Wollaston, the race will likely be FDJ-SUEZ’s to lose.
Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)
One other successful begin to the yr for Elisa Balsamo has seen her stand on the highest step of the rostrum in two phases at Setmana Valenciana and Trofeo Alfredo Binda. There isn’t any doubt that each Italian rider competing may have positioned an significance on this occasion and Balsamo is definitely no exception.
Organisers could have solely just lately introduced the official particulars of the 156km race that takes the peloton southwest down the coast in direction of the By way of Roma finale in San Remo, however riders would have had ample alternative to preview and practice alongside the ultimate that features the Cipressa and Poggio, which is similar as the lads’s race.
Balsamo’s most up-to-date victory at Trofeo Alfredo Binda may have given her confidence heading into the subsequent race on house soil. She additionally traces up with a robust Lidl-Trek workforce that features Anna Henderson, Lucinda Model and Lizzie Deignan, who’s the one rider that has received the opposite three Monuments; Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liège.
Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Group ADQ)
The Italian Champion and winner of final yr’s Giro d’Italia is one other with loads of motivation to attempt to take victory in San Remo. Elisa Longo Borghini takes the beginning together with her new workforce UAE Group ADQ after her tenure with Lidl-Trek got here to an finish final yr.
It’s a new setup for her however she has rapidly built-in with the programme and her new teammates, collectively securing the general victory on the UAE Tour. The workforce raced to perfection within the crosswinds on stage 2 which successfully positioned Longo Borghini in pole place to win the stage race earlier than they even reached the decisive Jebel Hafeet.
A standout runner-up efficiency from Silvia Persico on the daunting climb, which was particularly spectacular after her domestique work in assist of Longo Borghini, exhibits that she, too, is a contender for the win in Milan-San Remo.
In the event that they work as effectively collectively as they’ve to date this season, the sky is the restrict for each riders, and it’ll repay to have two robust playing cards to play in a difficult remaining in San Remo.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike)
Nobody actually knew what to anticipate when Pauline Ferrand-Prévot made the choice to retire from mountain biking and return to highway racing with Visma-Lease a Bike this yr.
The 15-time elite World Champion and 2024 mountain biking Olympic Champion has now dedicated to the highway full-time, at the least for the subsequent three years. She started her season on the UAE Tour, which she known as a ‘warm-up’, earlier than rivalling the highest riders within the sport to say third place, behind Demi Vollering and Anna van der Breggen, at Strade Bianche.
She had already said that the subsequent massive goal was the revived Milan-San Remo Girls and sooner or later, the Tour de France Femmes.
Whereas Strade Bianche’s off-road factor performed to her strengths, there isn’t a denying that Ferrand-Prévot appears set to proceed to be a significant contender within the tougher terrain and hilly one-day races.
It will likely be fascinating to see how Visma-Lease a Bike play their playing cards with two potential winners in Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos. Vos is all the time a contender at nearly any race she begins however the Dutch rider had a later begin to the season. Regardless of that, she managed fourth place at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, which exhibits that she, too, is in high type forward of Milan-San Remo.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)
She may not have the identical expertise in competing within the Spring Classics as among the different favourites on this record, however mountain bike world champion Puck Pieterse has definitely change into one of the crucial constant performers over the earlier two seasons.
Final yr was her first full spring highway racing marketing campaign and she or he ended up within the high 10 at each race she began. This yr has been no totally different, to date, ending fourth at Omloop and a pair of seventh locations at Strade Bianche and Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
On high of her power in mountain bike, cyclocross and one-day highway racing, she delivered her biggest efficiency in highway racing to date in her debut on the Tour de France Femmes final yr, beating Demi Vollering to win stage 4 in a rain-soaked Liège after which securing the perfect younger rider classification.
At Milan-San Remo, we count on to see extra of the identical consistency however she may even have a robust workforce that features Yara Kastelijn and Pauliena Rooijakkers, who was third general on the Tour final yr.
If the climate turns for the worst alongside the coastal route, because it has been forecast forward of the weekend, that may solely play to Pieterse’s strengths and improve her possibilities of delivering one other high outcome.
Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto)
This was a tricky name as a result of Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto are fielding a really robust workforce for Milan-San Remo with the likes of Tour de France winner Kasia Niewiadoma, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and Italian sprinter Chiara Consonni, however we now have chosen Chloé Dygert as their rider to look at this weekend.
All are definitely contenders, nonetheless, Niewiadoma has solely just lately recovered from a heavy crash that compelled her to desert Strade Bianche and Uttrup Ludwig hasn’t had a stellar begin to the season, but. Consonni is a contender within the occasion of a bunch dash or perhaps a diminished dash if a cut up happens on the run-in to San Remo.
Dygert has flown beneath the radar forward of this race, although she has clearly been in nice type given her outcomes on the opening races in Australia the place she received the ultimate stage on the Tour Down Underneath and completed fourth at Cadel Evans Highway Race.
Nonetheless, Milan-San Remo is her first race on European soil this yr in order that makes her considerably of an outsider choose however together with her traits it’s onerous to go previous the rider from the USA. She is robust sufficient to climb with the entrance group on the Poggio, highly effective sufficient to go on a late-race assault and maintain off a chase, plus quick sufficient to contest a dash for the victory.
Marta Cavalli (Group Picnic PostNL)
It has been practically 4 years since Marta Cavalli had her breakthrough season – successful the Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, and ending fifth at Paris-Roubaix and sixth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2022 – and it has been a difficult highway again from the intense crash that compelled her to desert the Tour de France Femmes that very same yr.
Now racing for her new workforce Group Picnic PostNL after ending her tenure at FDJ-SUEZ final yr, Cavalli finds herself in an all-new management function surrounded by new faces and likelihood to aspire to new objectives.
Milan-San Remo has been on her radar because it was rumoured that RCS Sport may revive the ladies’s race again in 2022. At the moment, Cavalli stated she dreamed of successful the Monument and that she would “like to play out an enormous struggle with all of the riders from the WorldTour on the Poggio“.
She additionally stated the long-lasting climb had a particular place in her coronary heart and that she had frolicked coaching within the space out of a base in San Remo. She’s going to now get that likelihood to compete in her nation’s famed Monument, with a workforce that has a number of playing cards to play with Pfeiffer Georgi.
Cavalli has been performing constantly within the early season races, and whereas she will not be a favorite for the win, she is definitely a contender for the a high place, and the unpredictability of motorcycle racing signifies that something can occur on the roads to San Remo, together with a shock victory.
Liane Lippert (Movistar)
There is not something Liane Lippert cannot do in terms of racing on the Girls’s WorldTour, and she or he has confirmed herself able to successful the largest races, particularly during the last two or three seasons in her transition from DSM to Movistar.
Victories in phases on the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Tour de Romandie, and at difficult one-day races like Cadel Evans Highway Race, Tre Valli Varseine, whereas additionally second at Flèche Wallonne make her a superb match for this new and punchy Milan-San Remo route.
She will not be as constant as a few of her rivals, however she is definitely one to look at within the later phases of the race when the climbing will get harder. She is an explosive rider on the shorter climbs and shouldn’t have any downside racing among the many finest on the Cipressa and Poggio, so if there’s a diminished group on the descent and run-in to San Remo, Lippert is more likely to be in it.
With teammates like Olivia Baril and Cat Ferguson, Movistar ought to have a superb displaying at Milan-San Remo.
Kristen Faulkner (EF Schooling-Oatly)
It’s one other powerful name as a result of EF Schooling-Oatly will area a strong workforce that features Paris-Roubaix winner Alison Jackson, Tour de France stage winner Cédrine Kerbaol, and sprinter Lotta Henttala who might all characteristic within the remaining. Nevertheless, we selected Olympic Champion Kristen Faulkner because the rider to look at on Saturday.
In the intervening time, Faulkner’s type is a query mark, as a result of she has not raced but this season. The workforce just lately introduced that Milan-San Remo can be her first occasion of the yr, and the rationale for her delayed begin was in order that she might totally get well from a concussion sustained in a crash whereas coaching final December.
It’s enough to say, that the workforce and Faulkner are assured that she is well-prepared for Milan-San Remo, and Faulkner herself has stated that is her first goal earlier than competing on the Ardennes and the Vuelta, after which peaking once more within the second half of the season.
Contracted to race with EF Schooling-Oatly by way of 2026, she had an distinctive season in final yr the place she received the elite ladies’s highway race title on the USA Biking Nationwide Championships adopted by two gold medals on the Olympic Video games within the highway race and workforce pursuit. If these performances are something to go by, we must always count on the surprising from Faulkner on this difficult course.
Letizia Paternoster (Liv-AlUla-Jayco)
One other Italian rider to look at is Letizia Paternoster, who is not only a sprinter however excels on powerful one-day terrain. She will likely be main the Liv-AlUla-Jayco and an important choice for the ultimate, ought to she cowl the Cipressa and Poggio with the entrance runners.
Paternoster has already confirmed that she is up for such a problem. She is a observe racer who loves the Spring Classics and was already twice within the high 10 at Le Samyn and Trofeo Alfredo Binda this yr.
Final yr she completed fourth at Ronde van Drenthe, third at Dwars door Vlaanderen and ninth at Tour of Flanders, and she or he completed third at Gent-Wevelgem in 2019.
Liv-AlUla-Jayco have a number of different riders to look at, too, with Mavi Garcia, who will undoubtedly be among the many picks on Cipressa and Poggio and Ruby Roseman-Gannon, who can also be a strong sprinter on difficult terrain.
Honourable mentions
- Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike)
- Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime)
- Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek)
- Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto)
- Kimberley Le Courtroom (AG Insurance coverage-Soudal Group)
- Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck)
- Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Schooling-Oatly)
- Pfeiffer Georgi (Group Picnic PostNL)
- Juliette Labous and Ally Wollaston (FDJ-SUEZ)
- Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Well being)