Not just Tadej Pogacar: stars announced for Milan-San Remo
Milano-Sanremo: entries announced
Anticipation is growing for the Milano-Sanremo presented by Crédit Agricole, now in its 116th edition, which will start Saturday, March 22, from Pavia. In the morning, the entrants were announced: many stars at the start, starting with Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian star has expressed more than once his desire to win the Classicissima, one of the two Monumental Classics that is missing from his already well-stocked palmares.
In the last three editions the world champion è went on an upward trend, finishing 5° in 2022, 4° in 2023, and standing on the podium for the first time in 2024 where he placed behind Jasper Philipsen and Michael Matthews. The Belgian will be at the start with dorsal number 1, in an Alpecin-Deceuninck that also features the winner of the 2023 edition, Mathieu Van der Poel. Filippo Ganna and Jonathan Milan, both stars at Tirreno-Adriatico, will lead the Italian hopes, with the Lidl – Trek sprinter having to share the leadership with Mads Pedersen.
In addition to the already mentioned Matthews, riders in great form such as Thomas Pidcock, Stefan Kung, Magnus Cort Nielsen, Maxim Van Gils and Olav Kooij will be to watch. Also announced at the start are former winners of the test such as John Degenkolb (2015), Michal Kwiatkowski (2017), Julian Alaphilippe (2019), Jasper Stuyven (2021) and Matej Mohoric (2022).
The Milan-Sanremo 2025 starts from Pavia and heads north towards Milan to reach Certosa where it joins the traditional route. It touches Casteggio and Voghera before a further digression into the territory by reaching Rivanazzano and Salice Terme to rejoin the classic route in Tortona and from there follow it to the arrival retracing the road that for more than 110 years has connected Milan with the Riviera di Ponente touching Ovada, the Turchino Pass to descend to Genoa-Voltri. It then proceeds westward beside the sea along the Aurelia state highway through Varazze, Savona, Albenga (no Manie climb inserted from 2008 to 2013) until reaching Imperia. In San Lorenzo al Mare, after the classic sequence of Capi (Mele, Cervo and Berta), we face the two climbs inserted in recent decades: Cipressa (1982) and Poggio di Sanremo (1961). Cipressa passes 5.6 km at 4.1% to enter the very technical descent that leads back to ss.1 Aurelia.
At 9 km from the finish, the Poggio di Sanremo climb begins (3.7 km at less than 4 percent average with peaks of 8 percent in the section before the drop-off). The climb features a slightly narrowed roadway and 4 hairpin bends in the first 2 km. The descent è very challenging on asphalt road, narrowed in some passages, with and a succession of hairpin bends and counter-bends until the entrance to the Aurelia highway. The’last part of the descent takes place in the’built-up area of San Remo. Last 2 km on long straights on city streets. Of note at 850 m from the’finish a left turn on a traffic circle and at 750 m from the’finish the’last turn that leads onto the final straight of via Roma.
