Weekend Preview: Strade-Bianche & Paris-Nice
Breaking down the startlist, course and potential winners for Saturday's Strade-Bianche & looking ahead to what is shaping up to be a thrilling version of Paris-Nice on Sunday
Strade-Bianche
The extremely exciting and gorgeous race over the white gravel roads of Tuscany is coming up tomorrow (Saturday). The 184-kilometer-long race delivers striking scenery, features copious amounts of climbing via short, steep hills, and finishes up a brutally steep 1.75km climb into the picturesque Piazza del Campo in Siena almost always serves up a thrilling finale.
2023 Race Profile
A Young Race
Unlike nearly every other race of note in the WorldTour, Strade is a young race, only tracing its origins back to 2007. The rapid increase in the prestige of the race is completely unprecedented and somewhat shocking.
But in only 16 years, it has been built up from nothing and taken an important role in a schedule where nearly every other event has been around for at least a hundred years.
In some ways, its youth has been its great strength and allowed the race to be constructed in a more entertaining and modern image than the other Spring Classics. It is nearly half the distance of the 113-year-old Milano-Sanremo and is almost always more exciting than its more historic older sibling.
This hip new format means the race isn’t as selective or tactically complex as the sport’s Grande Dames. Its shorter distance and simpler strategy open up the winning pool to a greater variety of riders. Specifically, young and inexperienced riders who lack the endurance base to compete at the much longer Monuments.
In fact, over the last eight years, the average age of the winner at Strade (26.9) was a full year younger than Flanders (27.9) and four years younger than Paris-Roubaix (31.2). The distances of these events are as follows; Strade (184km), Flanders (273km), and Roubaix (256km).
The Missing Stars
While recent years have seen the race hailed as one of the most interesting of the season, and perhaps even an unofficial sixth Monument, the names missing from this year’s start list are perhaps more notable than those on it.
The 2020 winner, Wout van Aert is also staying home to recover from an illness picked up during training camp
Last year’s champion, Tadej Pogačar, is skipping the event to focus on his showdown with the defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard at the Paris-Nice stage race, which starts on Sunday.
Add in the absence of recent strong performers here like Egan Bernal and Romain Bardet, and the race has certainly lost some of its usual luster and intrigue.
So, Who Will Win?
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