It’s that time of year as the third Saturday in March can only mean one thing – it’s Milan-San Remo and this year’s edition promises to be a thriller with all of cycling’s biggest names taking to the start line.
Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), Remco Evenepoel (Soudal – Quick Step), Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) are just some of the riders who will battle it out for the first Monument of 2023.
With a whopping 294km of racing, Milan-San Remo is the longest one-day race on the World Tour and it’s really open to anyone – a sprinter, puncheur or climber can win it depending on how the race pans out.
Milan-San Remo date
The 2023 Milan-San Remo takes place this Saturday on March 18 and is the first of five Monuments in 2023.
The others are the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Giro di Lombardia.
How can I watch Milan San-Remo 2023? Live stream details
Eurosport’s cycling coverage in 2023 will bring you the biggest races of the season, which of course means we will have all of the action of Milan-San Remo.
Our coverage begins on Saturday at 08:45 UK time on Eurosport 2 for the start of the race, all the way to the finish at just before 17:00.
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Milan-San Remo 2023 route
The biggest change to the traditional route is race organisers were forced to move the start away from Milan due to limited police resource, among other reasons.
Instead, the race will begin in Abbiategrasso, 22km southwest of Milan. The riders will soon be back on the usual route, though with the first climb, the Passo del Turchino, coming just before the halfway mark of the 294km route.
With 64km to go, a trio of climbs could see the first key moves if someone feels like going for a long one. The Capo Mele, Capo Cervo and Capo Berta come within 24km of each other, with the latter peaking out at 39km remaining.
Now we are into the really exciting part of the day as the penultimate climb, the Cipressa comes with 28km to go and is 5.6km long at 4.1%.
If a sprinter such as Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin–Deceuninck) or Sam Bennett (Bora–Hansgrohe) isn’t feeling too good, they could be found out here and quickly spat out of the bunch. You also want to be near the front because the Poggio might be 16km to go, but the pace will be fierce as positioning is key.
Then comes the Poggio itself, where attacks are guaranteed as the puncheurs and climbers will try to make their move on the 6.6km climb that has a maximum gradient of 8%. You can already see Pogacar, Roglic or Evenepoel going for it here and the sprinters trying to hold on.
At the crest, there is 5.5km to go and you have to go for it on the descent just as much as you do on the climb.
Last year, Matej Mohoric won the race with a superb descent to go solo and hold on until the end. No rider has won back-to-back Milan-San Remo titles since Erik Zabel in 2000 and 2001.
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