All the Canadians at Milan – San Remo
The Italian Monument is Saturday and there’s a bunch of Canucks racing
On Saturday, the 116th edition of Milan – San Remo, and the first (sort of) edition of the Milan – San Remo Donne takes place. From 1999 to 2005, there was a women’s race alongside the men’s—the Primavera Rosa—but it wasn’t actually called MSR. Back then, it was part of the World Cup, a series that ran from 1998 to 2015.
In 2025, the Milano–San Remo Donne will mark the first time it’s being held as part of the Women’s WorldTour.
Many big names will contest the women’s race. Demi Vollering, Juliette Labous, Lotte Kopecky, Blanka Vas, and Lorena Wiebes headline the field. Katarzyna Niewiadoma seeks redemption, while Elisa Balsamo leads Lidl-Trek. UAE Tour winner Elisa Longo Borghini will be there for UAE Team ADQ. Visma-Lease a Bike has Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Marianne Vos.
There will be some Canadians racing as well. Movistar’s Olivia Baril will be there, showing good form after a respectable 12th at the Trofeo Alfredo Binda. Sarah van Dam, after her early season injuries due to a motorist collision in Australia, is back racing with her CERATIZIT Pro Cycling team. Uno-X Mobility’s Simone Boilard and Magdeleine Vallières will also be on the start line. Vallières will be the sole EF Education-Oatly entrant. There was some earlier chatter that her teammate Alison Jackson, back from six weeks’ recovery for a broken scaphoid suffered in the UAE Tour, would be there, but she won’t race quite yet.
In the men’s race, fans will again be looking for Tadej Pogačar to work his magic and win MSR. Will he try again on the Poggio and see if it sticks? In 2024, he launched and then rocketed down the descent. However he was caught by an elite group of racers. Mathieu Van der Poel played leadout man for his teammate Jasper Philipsen, who took the win.
National TT champion Pier-André Côté will be the sole Canuck on Israel – Premier Tech in Italy, and Nickolas Zukowsky will be doing his best to keep his Q36.5 Pro Cycling teammate Tom Pidcock in the right position before the decisive Cipressa and Poggio. Zukowsky has been riding well this year, doing some big pulls at the recent Tirreno-Adriatico.
The men’s race is 289 km, and the women’s is 156 km.
To watch both events, you can go to FloBikes.com.