Milano-Sanremo Donne 2025, first edition of women's race, March 22

[Sciatic]

Except Roman Catholic services can be held on Saturday evenings as a Vigil mass.

I thought it was a good joke!

 

[RedheadDane]

I thought it was a good joke!

Just to be clear; it was only the first part, the bit about Sunday being reserved for church in Italy, that was a joke.
The second part; cycling being considered church in Belgium, was 100% serious.
Right?

 

[Sciatic]

Just to be clear; it was only the first part, the bit about Sunday being reserved for church in Italy, that was a joke.
The second part; cycling being considered church in Belgium, was 100% serious.
Right?

That’s why it’s a good joke! All jokes should have some truth to them.

 

[proffate]

I’m just curious about the descending skills after the Poggio. Their races are almost always won on the climbs but here it could be otherwise. And descending will be, just as in the men’s race, more about the legs than skill after the climbs.

Vollering and Longo Borghini went hard in the descent yesterday but Pieterse closed the gap so went even crazier. Maybe she’ll be my not so dark horse for a solo descent win.

Kopecky won worlds last year on the descent, by distancing and thereby tiring Dygert.

 

[Didinho]

Kopecky won worlds last year on the descent, by distancing and thereby tiring Dygert.

Indeed that’s one example. But that’s more about legs I think after a hard race. I’m expecting more riders close to eachother and with these sharp corners after the Poggio I’m curious to see the woman descend while on the limit.

I was also forgetting about Kopecky and Wiebes at the start. After seeing races without them the last weeks. Maybe Kopecky can go solo on the Poggio.

 

[Davesta]

I’m just curious about the descending skills after the Poggio. Their races are almost always won on the climbs but here it could be otherwise. And descending will be, just as in the men’s race, more about the legs than skill after the climbs.

Vollering and Longo Borghini went hard in the descent yesterday but Pieterse closed the gap so went even crazier. Maybe she’ll be my not so dark horse for a solo descent win.

Cedrine Kerbaol for the win then!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Cedrine Kerbaol for the win then!

If the roads are wet when they get there, she has a chance, but I doubt she will make it over Poggio with the best riders, unlike Puck, so she may have to hope the pace drops after the top.

 

[hayneplane]

Hoping for a big ride from Cat Ferguson.

 

[Didinho]

Wiebes did the 3rd best time (women) on the Poggio in training today at 29,1km/h. She’s ready. Although they will go a lot faster in race.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Wiebes did the 3rd best time (women) on the Poggio in training today at 29,1km/h. She’s ready. Although they will go a lot faster in race.

The QOM is 8 years old and is held by Ilaria Sanguineti who's not exactly known for her climbing ability, so I have no idea how great it is. However the fact that the second best time was ridden just last month by Illi Gardner, who we know is a QOM hunter, makes me wonder whether Sanguineti did hers behind a scooter.

Looking at Strava also made me realise that they actually climbed Poggio in the 2022 Trofeo Ponente in Rosa. It was the first climb on a stage that started and finished in Diano Marina, which also featured Capo Berta from both directions. Iris Monticolo and Nadia Quagliotto broke free on Poggio. The latter proved the strongest in the descent, but was brought back not too long after. Quagliotto then attacked again in the final descent from Berta and won the stage as well as the GC.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9YAxbIbZI

 

[Didinho]

The QOM is 8 years old and is held by Ilaria Sanguineti who's not exactly known for her climbing ability, so I have no idea how great it is. However the fact that the second best time was ridden just last month by Illi Gardner, who we know is a QOM hunter, makes me wonder whether Sanguineti did hers behind a scooter.

Yeah that’s also why I said they could go a lot faster in the race. Some riders from Fenix were only 10” slower today. I remember Casasola being one. But it’s with traffic etc so you can’t take anything from it. Aside that 29 km/h is strong in these circumstances and she wasn’t doing a big part in a peloton.

She was before and will still be the biggest favorite for me. Don’t know who can beat her if she doesn’t get dropped hard or is isolated in the final. With Kopecky it’s like the Philipsen-MVDP combo.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Yeah that’s also why I said they could go a lot faster in the race. Some riders from Fenix were only 10” slower today. I remember Casasola being one. But it’s with traffic etc so you can’t take anything from it. Aside that 29 km/h is strong in these circumstances and she wasn’t doing a big part in a peloton.

She was before and will still be the biggest favorite for me. Don’t know who can beat her if she doesn’t get dropped hard or is isolated in the final. With Kopecky it’s like the Philipsen-MVDP combo.

The difference is that Kopecky possibly won't hand Wiebes the win. Also I'm not at all sure Wiebes will make it over the top in the front group, and then there's also the likelihood of her and others crashing along the coast before the climb.

 

[proffate]

Indeed that’s one example. But that’s more about legs I think after a hard race. I’m expecting more riders close to eachother and with these sharp corners after the Poggio I’m curious to see the woman descend while on the limit.

that was the opposite of legs, dygert and was stronger that day but she's still got ptsd from her big crash (presumably). Kopecky was weaker than vollering, dygert and LLB yet she still went to the front to push the pace.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Kopecky and Faulkner will make their season debuts and Dygert and Kasia will be resuming their seasons. Even Van Anrooij will be able to ride, despite the recent news she probably wouldn't be lining up before May.

 

[RedheadDane]

 

[Didinho]

Good to have Shirin back! Balsamo one of the big favorites.

Could we compare the climbs from 1 lap Trofeo Binda with Sanremo?
I’m thinking the climbers will already make it hard on the Cipressa, but otherwise they haven’t done Sanremo before so they’re all waiting to be fresher on the Poggio for attacks.

 

[Lequack]

Puck Pieterse flies up Poggio at 29.7km/h in recon to set fastest Strava time this year​

Puck Pieterse flies up Poggio at 29.7km/h in recon to set fastest Strava time this year

Lorena Wiebes also ominously speedy as Justine Ghekiere fastest up the Cipressa, men’s records expected to fall on Saturday

www.cyclingnews.com

 

[Wyndbrook]

Tomorrow Lizzy Deignan can become the first rider to win all four available monuments (unlikely), or Lotte Kopecky can join her in winning three.
The early break for Lizzy perhaps likely.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Tomorrow Lizzy Deignan can become the first rider to win all four available monuments (unlikely), or Lotte Kopecky can join her in winning three.
The early break for Lizzy perhaps likely.

Longo Borghini can join Deignan as well.

 

[Wyndbrook]

Longo Borghini can join Deignan as well.

Thank you, as my memory is not as sound as it was I was crosschecking by using three columns on a piece of scrap paper and adding names.
Appears my ability to read might be suspect as well!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Thank you, as my memory is not as sound as it was I was crosschecking by using three columns on a piece of scrap paper and adding names.
Appears my ability to read might be suspect as well!

But the monument discussion is of course still quite artificial on the women's side, because the races haven't been around for long (one of them still isn't), which also means a lot of great riders didn't get the opportunity to ride them (in the case of Vos, not in her absolute prime).

 

[Didinho]

Fenix in green today.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

But the monument discussion is of course still quite artificial on the women's side, because the races haven't been around for long (one of them still isn't), which also means a lot of great riders didn't get the opportunity to ride them (in the case of Vos, not in her absolute prime).

And the one that's missing is the one that, until recently, would have been the most outlying on the calendar too.

I honestly think Flèche is more of a monument than any of the actual monuments bar RVV for women, given its age and history relative to the others. The women's calendar is developing into a parallel for the men's, but the relative youth of a lot of the races means that quite a few of the historic riders' legacies exists primarily in races which were exclusive to women (Trofeo Binda, for example) or have much stronger roles within the women's calendar than they do in the men's (Ronde van Drenthe, a women's WT event but a middling men's 1.1, for example).

I also feel that, now that there is a stronger calendar of comparable races with the development of the three GTs, a lot of races of those kinds of status become less important within the calendar, as the hobbyist organisers can no longer compete with the likes of ASO and Flanders Classics when they actually bother to invest in women's cycling, meaning that races like the Thüringen Rundfahrt or the Giro della Toscana that are now almost developmental races equivalent to a .PRO event, and long-lost formerly prestigious events like the Tour de l'Aude, do not carry weight to a modern audience and mean that the achievements of stars of yesteryear will be undervalued.

As a result I feel like some of the current races ought to 'adopt' the history of past equivalent races. I don't expect ASO to adopt the Pierre Bordry Tours, since they themselves forbade them from using the Tour de France name, or the Route de France, because they expended so much effort on marketing the relaunch of the Tour de France Femmes as a new event, but for example treating the history of Emakumeen Bira as part of the history of Itzulia (since TV companies wanting to fold it into Itzulia was a large part of why the organising committee of Emakumeen Bira, who'd run their race consistently since the 80s and with a very strong list of winners and podiums), as pandemic notwithstanding that would leave an unbroken legacy.

Similarly Primavera Rosa from 1999 to 2005 should be part of the history of Milano-Sanremo Donne, and the Holland Hills Classic, which took place in the Limburg hills from 2004 to 2016 coinciding perfectly with the gap in the history of the women's Amstel Gold Race, should be part of its history - at least the 2008-2016 versions that finished in Valkenburg or Geulhemmer.

 

[RedheadDane]

 

[Samu Cuenca]

And the one that's missing is the one that, until recently, would have been the most outlying on the calendar too.

I honestly think Flèche is more of a monument than any of the actual monuments bar RVV for women, given its age and history relative to the others. The women's calendar is developing into a parallel for the men's, but the relative youth of a lot of the races means that quite a few of the historic riders' legacies exists primarily in races which were exclusive to women (Trofeo Binda, for example) or have much stronger roles within the women's calendar than they do in the men's (Ronde van Drenthe, a women's WT event but a middling men's 1.1, for example).

I also feel that, now that there is a stronger calendar of comparable races with the development of the three GTs, a lot of races of those kinds of status become less important within the calendar, as the hobbyist organisers can no longer compete with the likes of ASO and Flanders Classics when they actually bother to invest in women's cycling, meaning that races like the Thüringen Rundfahrt or the Giro della Toscana that are now almost developmental races equivalent to a .PRO event, and long-lost formerly prestigious events like the Tour de l'Aude, do not carry weight to a modern audience and mean that the achievements of stars of yesteryear will be undervalued.

As a result I feel like some of the current races ought to 'adopt' the history of past equivalent races. I don't expect ASO to adopt the Pierre Bordry Tours, since they themselves forbade them from using the Tour de France name, or the Route de France, because they expended so much effort on marketing the relaunch of the Tour de France Femmes as a new event, but for example treating the history of Emakumeen Bira as part of the history of Itzulia (since TV companies wanting to fold it into Itzulia was a large part of why the organising committee of Emakumeen Bira, who'd run their race consistently since the 80s and with a very strong list of winners and podiums), as pandemic notwithstanding that would leave an unbroken legacy.

Similarly Primavera Rosa from 1999 to 2005 should be part of the history of Milano-Sanremo Donne, and the Holland Hills Classic, which took place in the Limburg hills from 2004 to 2016 coinciding perfectly with the gap in the history of the women's Amstel Gold Race, should be part of its history - at least the 2008-2016 versions that finished in Valkenburg or Geulhemmer.

It doesn't help that both Drenthe and Thüringen are now also gone from the calendar, at least for the time being. The you still got whatever the race in Plouay is officially called these days and Omloop that also got around 20 years of history or more.