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110 springs

The Milano-Sanremo, also known in Italian as the Classicissima or the Spring, arrives this year at its 110th edition. The race has been held since 1907, and has only been stopped in 1916, by the First World War, and in 1944 and 1945, by the Second. It is the first of the five Monuments, next to the Tour de Flanders, the Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Paris-Roubaix and Il Lombardia. Pure history

293.41 km

It is the longest cyclist day of the World Tour, by far. The route of the Milano-Sanremo, although it has been varying more than that of other Monuments, is characterized by being the longest, but also the least steep of the five. In fact, it is the ideal occasion for sprinters to be able to take a Monument. The highest level is the Turchino Pass, which is almost 150 km from the finish line and does not entail great difficulties: they are 25 km to 1.4%, which in the last ramps reach 5.7%.

3.7 km

3.7 km to 3.7% of average slope. They are not impressive data of il Poggio di San Remo, the small hill that crowns to 5.3 km of goal, and whose maximum ramp is 8%. It is obvious that the difficulty does not lie in the level itself, but the crux of the matter is how each cyclist takes the almost 300 kilometers in the legs. In addition, the narrow road and its closeness to the finish make an attack before crowning, made by a specialist in the descent, difficult to control by the teams of the sprinters. This is exactly what two years ago Peter Sagan (1200) dressed in rainbows, although he took with him Julien Alaphilipe (1200) and Michael Kwiatkowski (1200), who would end up taking the victory in the sprint to 3.

Last year, Vincenzo Nibali (800) attacked exactly in the same place, just before crowning and, alone, with a superclass descent, managed to gain the pulse of the runaway squad, giving rise to one of the great images of the season : Nibali celebrating victory with all the fast men just one meter behind. The shark from Messina was biting again.

2 years without massive sprint

The great sprinters have not won the Monument of the Sprinters for two years, hence the poster includes almost all the great figures of the international peloton. The favorites, those of always: Sam Bennet (1200), Elia Viviani (1200), Fernando Gaviria (1200), or Caleb Ewan (1200), without discarding other sprinters like Sonny Colbrelli (1000), Matteo Trentin (800), Giacomo Nizzolo (800), Sacha Modolo (800) or Nacer Bohuanni (600), to name a few. Arnaud Demare (1200), John Degenkolb (800) and Alexander Kristoff (1200) are in the startlist and already know what it is to win a Milano-Sanremo (2016, 2015 and 2014, respectively).

Among those who can spoil the party we can name the defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (800), the always fearsome Peter Sagan (1200), the World Champion Alejandro Valverde (1200), the clasicomano Greg Van Avermaet (1200), the magician Julien Alaphilipe (1200), or the Kazakh Alexei Lutsenko (600) who is super fit and has the qualities to win the best, as demonstrated the other day in the Tirreno-Adriatico overcoming the sprint Primoz Roglic (1200) and Adam Yates (1000) after falling twice escaping solo.

51 Italian victories

Although the Belgian Eddy Merx leads the list of winners with seven wins (1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1976), the Italians have won the most victories in the Classicissima, taking a total of 51 titles. In the last decade, however, only Vincenzo Nibali (800), last year, has managed to keep the victory at home.