Weekend Preview: Milano-Sanremo

Breaking down the startlist, course and potential winners for the first one-day Monument of the season with Saturday's Milano-Sanremo

With the Milano-Sanremo or la Classicissima di Primavera kicking off tomorrow, it means we’ve officially arrived in one-day Monument season (aka real racing). The marathon race, which was reduced from its usual 300kms down to 294km for 2023, takes the peloton from the heart of the industrial plains surrounding Milan to the glamorous Mediterranean locale of Sanremo.

• For a more in-depth betting-specific preview and breakdown, listen to my OŪTCOMES podcast with Johan Bruyneel (if you sign up for a WEDŪ Membership and email me the confirmation, you get an additional year of premium BTP for free).

2023 Course Profile

While in the past this race was considered a chance for the sprinters to snag a monument win, the current golden age we are currently living in sees the sport’s best grand tour riders duking it against the sport’s best one-day riders and sprinters.

• The variety and firepower of the start list and a truly electric final 30 minutes of racing will likely make the finale Milano-Sanremo a can’t-miss. However, the 294km course and lack of significant geographic features until they hit the coast mean that the vast majority route is a must-miss. So, please do not tune into the entire 8-hour broadcast and simply turn on your stream with 40km-to-go as the peloton begins their fight for position as they approach the penultimate climb, the Cipressa, duke it out up the final climb, the Poggio, with 10km-to-go before navigating the chaotic descent and scenic finishing straight along the Via Roma in Sanremo.

The Late Attackers’ Classic

While the race is known as The Sprinters’ Classic, the last five years have seen a stark shift away from the pure sprinter demographic to more traditional all-rounders and even GC contenders. Michał Kwiatkowski won from a breakaway group in 2017, Vincenzo Nibali took a spectacular (kind of) solo victory in 2018, Julian Alaphilippe won from a 12-person peloton in 2019, Wout van Aert won a two-up sprint against Alaphilippe in 2020, Jasper Stuyven stuck another late solo move (even though he was counted on the same time as the chasers) in 2021, and Matej Mohorič rode clear on the descent off the Poggio to get a solo victory in 2022.

Adding to the evidence that the race is morphing into an event that favors late-attackers over sprinters when we look at the size of the final group from the past twenty editions, there is a clear trend line down.

What Does This Mean?

All of this should combine to tell us that we shouldn’t necessarily pick a pure sprinter like Jasper Philipsen or Caleb Ewan because it is the “sprinter’s classic” and we remember years of bunch sprints on the finishing straight.

• Instead, we should expect a rider who can withstand the nuclear-fast pace of the Poggio. They should probably just rename the race to “the pretty fast rider who can also climb” classic.

• With the rise of a fleet of young riders who can both climb and sprint at such a high level, it is hard to imagine reverting to the days of the peloton riding up the Cipressa and Poggio at a civil pace and then duking it out on the Via Roma from large group anytime soon.

  • Add in the fact that the arms race amongst these hybrid sprinter/climbers has been increasing the average climbing speeds of the Cipresso and Poggio, it means even if a sprinter makes it into Sanremo in the lead group, they will almost certainly lack teammates to reel in any late attacks (which is exactly what happened to Caleb Ewan in 2021) and give riders who can deal with the chaos and unrestrained racing that this will produce.

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