A Women’s Version of Milan-San Remo Is Planned. Sadly, It Will Be Much Shorter Than the Men’s Race.
Add one more to the list of classic bike races that will now have a version for the women’s peloton.
Recently, CEO of RCS Sport Paolo Bellino announced via Italian cycling website Bici Pro that race fans have will have a women’s edition of Milan-San Remo to look forward to in 2024.
Bellino mentioned that RCS—who organizes Milan-San Remo, along with most of Italy’s most high-profile bike races—envisions a women’s La Classicissma on the same day as the men’s race. However, likely to due to the logistics of the pairing and a UCI restriction limiting women’s races to a maximum of 170 kilometers, the women’s peloton would have to race a different course than the traditional route.
Bellino mentioned the women’s race would probably run from “Arenzano to San Remo,” which is a straight 120-kilometer shot down the Ligurian Coast. Such a route would confine the women to what is no doubt the most exciting part of the season’s first monument, as it’s in those final few dozen kilometers that the peloton finds themselves on the climbs that define the race.
But beyond the Poggio and the Cipressa, the thing La Classicissma is most known for is its brutal, leg-crushing length. Just shy of 300 kilometers, it is the longest professional one-day race in modern road cycling.
However, given the UCI’s maximum distance for women’s races, making a full replication of the men’s Primavera impossible under current restrictions. And while this is a massive step in the right direction for women’s racing, at least one of the sport’s biggest names wants to see more miles.
“A women’s version of Milan-San Remo should be the longest one-day race ever,” Dutch superstar Annemiek van Vleuten told cyclingnews in the wake of Bellino’s announcement. “Let’s start with 200 kilometers and gradually increase that distance.”
Whether or not the distance of a women’s Milan-San Remo grows to the scale of the men’s remains to be seen. But for now, a women’s Classicissma is welcome news, as it joins the ranks of the women’s Paris-Roubaix, and, of course, the Tour de France Femmes, both which have enjoyed massive interest in their first few iterations.
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