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The first edition of San Remo Women will be a hugely prestigious event, but that hasn’t stopped Lotte Kopecky from taking an unconventional approach to it.
The world road race champion will line out at the start with zero racing kilometers in her legs this season, choosing to make her 2025 debut in the event.
Will it work? Is it necessary to use races to have the necessary condition to win the biggest events in the sport?
If Kopecky has calculated things correctly, she will be able to hit the ground running.
“It was always the plan to start only in Milan San Remo, to have a bit more easy buildup,” she told Velo and other journalists recently.
“But I crashed last year in Simac and the load I had afterwards, it seemed it was a little bit more inconvenient than we thought. I also needed to be a little bit easier because of some difficulty in my knee.
“That is why we really stayed with this plan to start with Milan San Remo and not earlier.”
Most riders will compete in a number of events before a key objective. Kopecky did say she planned to go to an altitude hotel beforehand and has been training hard in Spain.
But will she be sharp enough? Many of those she will be up against in San Remo already have multiple days of competition in their legs. Former teammate Demi Vollering has seven days of racing to her credit, including three wins.
Kopecky’s teammate Lorena Wiebes also has a week of competition done, and has topped the podium four times.
Still, if Kopecky needs encouragement that she can be good right out of the blocks, she just needs to look at her 2023 season.
She first raced in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, going in fresh rather than race-sharp. She finished 11 seconds clear there, winning right away.
It’s definitely possible.
Planning for the Poggio
The women’s racing scene is continuously evolving, continuously growing. Both teams and events are far more professional than before, with race organizers also taking things more seriously.
Running San Remo Women is part of that. The race did exist before in a different guise, with the Primavera Rosa taking place between 1999 and 2005.
However the new iteration is more closely aligned with Milan-San Remo, having an almost identical name and being longer than the prior editions.
Like many of the riders in the peloton, Kopecky is excited.
“I’m happy that the race is added to the calendar,” she said.
“It is a race I actually like a lot [to watch] for the men’s, especially the final.”
That final takes place over the famous Poggio climb, with riders taking in the punchy ascent prior to plummeting down the tricky descent into San Remo.
Kopecky is a fast, explosive rider and—on paper at least—seems ideally suited to that kind of effort.
“I already know it from the TV. It’s a really nice climb,” she said.
“I mean, it will not be as explosive as it is with the men’s because for us it will take a little bit longer, but still I think it’s a very nice final climb. And then with the decent afterwards, and with the flat finish, it gives opportunities for a lot of riders.
“I think it’s a really nice race for our team SD Worx Protime.”
She would like to see one change, though. Year one will see the women compete over 156 kilometers, considerably less than the 289 km men’s race.
“In terms of distance, I think would be nice to have a 200 kilometer race,” Kopecky said, noting that this would make the Poggio more selective. “Maybe that’s something for the future.
“But I’m happy that the race is added to the calendar.”
Targeting the Tour?
The season is, of course, about far, far more than San Remo. Kopecky will chase multiple targets throughout the year, with the Classics again being very important to her.
She is a past winter of races such as Paris-Roubaix Femmes, the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Strade Bianche Donne and will have big ambitions again this season.
However she wants to broaden her aims too. She was runner up in the 2023 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and finished in the same slot in last year’s Giro d’Italia Donne.
More, she believes, may be possible.
“I like the classics, that is for sure. But I came second twice now in a grand tour without specific preparation for them,” she said. “Of course we are curious how far we can go there if we make a goal of it.”
Grand tours are often won in the high mountains. Kopecky is a punchier rider than the last two winners of the Tour, Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma, and while this serves her very well on shorter climbs, she would need to develop her abilities on much longer ascents.
She doesn’t believe that this would necessarily detract from what she is already best at.
“It depends on how we train, of course. I think I have been able to manage it pretty well to keep those components balanced between being explosive and climbing well,” she said.
“Maybe we will try to climb a little bit better and then maybe we will be a little less explosive. But then still I will be one of the more explosive riders in the bunch. So I don’t see any problem with that.”
Her plan, therefore, is to knuckle down to that type of training once her initial focus is done.
“We’ll finish the classic season, and then we’ll try to have the best possible preparation towards the Tour de France.”
Kopecky vs. Vollering: Taking on her former teammate
This season will be a fascinating one, in terms of the top names in the sport and how it will all play out.
Last year things were much more straightforward. Annemiek van Vleuten had retired, Anna van der Breggen and Pauline Ferrand Prévôt were yet to return, and SD Worx Protime still had—on paper at least—the strongest squad in the sport.
Kopecky, Vollering and Lorena Wiebes were three stars on the same team, and clocked up a staggering 53 victories between them.
All is more complicated now. Vollering felt a lack of support in the Tour de France Femmes and exited for FDJ Suez. Ferrand Prévôt has come back to the road will spearhead a big drive by Visma Lease a Bike to win the Tour, while Van der Breggen has come out of retirement and will have a leadership role with SD Worx Protime.
That reshuffles the deck considerably, in terms of tactics and possibilities. It remains to be seen how Kopecky will fit into all of that.
The biggest question is perhaps how she will handle being rivals with Vollering.
Kopecky chooses diplomacy in answering.
“Of course it will be different, but I think it is important to just focus on ourselves,” she said. “There is more than Demi Vollering in the peloton so we will not try to focus too much on her.”
As for Ferrand Prévôt, she says she has ‘no idea’ if the mountain bike star will be a major contender in her return to this aspect of the sport.
“She’s very talented for sure. I’ve never raced her on the road, I think,” she said. “We will see. I’m curious as well. I look forward to it.”
Multiple leaders, same squad: Will it complicate matters?
Starting the new season, Kopecky will wish to at least equal her tally of 2024, namely 16 wins. Taking the Tour would, of course, be even bigger, and is something she will work hard towards once the classics are done.
That does inevitably raise questions about how she and Van der Breggen will sync together.
The Dutchwoman is a teammate, not a rival, but their abilities overlap sufficiently that they will be chasing many of the same goals.
However Kopecky has her fingers crossed that all will be fine.
“Anna and me, we are doing very well together,” she said. “I hope we can have a smooth time racing together. We will see how it goes. But I’m pretty optimistic about it, actually.”
Was she surprised about her return?
“When I first heard it, I was a little bit. But otherwise I can really understand it. I mean, she’s still not that old, so I think she is still able to have a nice extension of her career. If Anna goes for something, she commits to it.”
Wiebes is of course another rider with whom she might overlap. The European champion is more of a pure sprinter, but she has enough versatility to win on some selective courses.
Kopecky doesn’t feel threatened.
“I think we have different goals,” she said. “And also if you see last year, I think everything went pretty smoothly between the two of us. So I don’t see any problems with that.
“As long as we know from each other what we want, I think that is the most important.”
Racing as a role model
Kopecky will be counting down the hours to San Remo, both literally and also during the race itself. She’d dearly love to win the first edition of the new version, and doing so in the rainbow jersey of world champion would make things all the better.
Now 29 years of age, she is aware that she is an icon for many in the sport. And that’s particularly the case for young Belgian riders.
Being a role model for that generation is a motivation to her.
“For me, it’s really important to be an example,” she said. “Sometimes I do not really realize how much they look up to me or how much things they want to learn, actually.
“But I try to give a good example. That’s something I think is really important.”
Part of that example is rising to challenges. The drive to be better sees her want to extend her limits, to aim for victories in races such as the Tour de France.
It also sees her embrace the changing landscape within the sport. SD Worx used to be steps above the other teams but a rising level plus a diversification of talent is making things harder to predict.
It may be harder to win, but she welcomes the challenge.
“For women’s cycling it is a good thing that riders are more in different teams,” she said, perhaps referring to Vollering and also Ferrand Prévôt’s return.
“I just try to work hard myself and to make sure that I’m ready for it.
“I look forward to it, because it’s going to be a very nice fight.”
Startlists, maps, TV guide, riders to watch:
Here’s all you need to know about this weekend’s Milan-San Remo and San Remo Women:
velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-ra…
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— VELO (@velo-velo-velo.bsky.social) 19 March 2025 at 08:14
