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How will the first San Remo Women in 20 years be won?
Who the heck knows.
The Cipressa-Poggio-Via Roma finale remains a riddle to the men’s peloton, even after 116 editions.
It’s going to be even more puzzling Saturday lunchtime when Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering, and the bunch blast down the Italian Riviera for the first time in the rebooted women’s monument.
Will the 160km course be long enough to bring the slow-burn tension and wild uncertainty that characterizes the men’s race?
Or will the women’s San Remo be a full-gas thrill ride, start to finish?
Or could “La Primavera Donne” straddle the two?
We’ll find out Saturday.
In the meantime, here are some serious and not-so-serious scenarios I’d like to see at the inaugural San Remo Women:
Vos bosses the bunch sprint
It just felt right when Marianne Vos wore the yellow jersey for five days at the inaugural Tour de France Femmes. It would feel just as fitting if “The Boss,” “The GOAT,” the one-and-only-Vos wins Saturday on the Via Roma, too.
As one of the most celebrated, respected riders in world cycling, not even the local tifosi would grumble too hard if the Dutchwoman pinches the Prosecco from an Italian.
And it’s far from out of the question that Vos will win out on the Via Roma.
The 37-year-old should be able to hang with a larger group on the Poggio, and she’s definitely got the speed to swat them all away on a bunch sprint.
Vos isn’t getting any younger, and her closest classics-style rivals – Lotte Kopecky, Anna van der Breggen, Elisa Longo Borghini et al – have got time at their sides.
So, for the sake of world cycling, let Vos boss San Remo before it’s too late.
A Kopecky vs. Vollering punch-up on the Poggio
Will the Poggio play “Queenmaker” at San Remo Women?
In all likelihood, yes.
The 3.7km hillock launched many dozens of men to monument victory at Milan-San Remo, and it’s primed to be pivotal Saturday for the women.
And if so, who wouldn’t want to see a big brawl between world champion Lotte Kopecky and her former SD Worx-Protime teammate Demi Vollering?
Whether their rivalry is all media hype or not, it would be a barnstormer.
Kopecky hasn’t raced all season, and so San Remo on Saturday will be the first time the world has witnessed a clash between these two toppers of the Women’s WorldTour.
And a climb as short and shallow as the 3.7 percent Poggio won’t tilt the odds too far in favor of one or the other, either.
Vollering and Kopecky on the Poggio would be a Box Office duel that sells out the popcorn.
Another ‘Omloop-gate’? Wildcard wins from the early break
Remember Lotte Claes and her ride from obscurity to celebrity at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad?
San Remo Women is screaming for a second chapter of “Omloop-gate.”
Saturday’s race will be the inaugural edition of a classic unlike any other already on the calendar.
Unlike the 20-year-old women’s Omloop or all the other long-running classics, there’s no history to cue from, and no script to follow (or flounder with, as was the case at “opening weekend”).
Throw in some tug ‘o’ war tension between the sprinters and the climbers, some peloton beef about who pulls back the break, and the Via Roma is wide-open for a breakaway survivor.
Claes isn’t going to be lining out Saturday in Genoa, so let’s hope for the shock win to emerge from a wildcard team hailing from the deepest underbelly of provincial Italy.
Team Aromitalia 3T Vaiano, Team Mendelspeck E-Work, I’m looking at you.
Longo Borghini blasts the sprinters with Via Roma attack
Winning San Remo isn’t only about punching away over the Poggio or stomping everybody in the bunch sprint.
A late dash down the Via Roma is a proven way of winning the men’s race, and it definitely could be this weekend at San Remo Women too.
There’s huge potential for the “inaugural” San Remo Women to come down to a final firecracker down the 750m Via Roma.
The Poggio might not be the launchpad like it is in the men’s race, or who knows, maybe Demi Vollering and the climbers can’t make things hard enough to drop the sprinters on the sinuous hillock.
A Via Roma raid got Elisa Longo Borghini written all over it. The aggressive Italian has made it her hallmark to ignite the peloton with an all-or-nothing attack.
And you can bet the tricolore-touting ELB has been pondering it.
She’s won the Giro d’Italia Women, the Giro dell’Emilia, Trofeo Alfred Binda, and Strade Bianche Donne, so she might as complete her Italian box set with San Remo.
And one I don’t want to see – weather woes dampen the party
The misery clouds that dumped snow, sleet, and rain on Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico last week better not make their way toward the Italian Riviera.
The disasters of Paris-Nice – re-routings, neutralizations, and frost-bitten fingers – serve as reminder that European spring ain’t so bright.
And nobody wants to see a repeat of the 2013 men’s MSR in the big-hype rebirth of the women’s San Remo.
12 years ago, dumping snow, late-hour diversions, and eventually a bus transfer and rider protest stole the headlines from shock winner Gerald Ciolek.
Forecasts are calling for mild temperatures but a steady dumping of rain on Saturday. There’s not going to be snow, and organizers RCS won’t be worrying about what’s to come.
But you get the idea.
Wild weather and parcours polemica is not what we want after 20 years of waiting for the return of the women’s San Remo.
