2023 Milan - San Remo Course and Contenders

It's a stellar line-up for the first Monument of the season, with plenty of riders already off to a good start this year, who are the favorites?

The first Monument of the 2023 season is back this Saturday, and, as usual, the 114th Milan-San Remo p/b Crédit Agricole has attracted some of the best names in the sport. 

Nearing 300km in length, it is the longest race in the men's WorldTour calendar, proving to be a real test of every rider's endurance.

Despite its great length, it is the legendary Poggio climb that has often been the deciding factor as to who will be fighting it out for victory. The strongest climbers use the steepest of gradients to launch their attacks. Tadej Pogacar took this tactic last year, but he couldn’t drop Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Søren Kragh Andersen, and Matej Mohoric. It was only on the technical descent into San Remo that Mohoric took his chance and flew past the other rides, with his dropper seatpost taking the 2022 title. 

Most of the riders who will be on the start-line for this year’s Milan-San Remo have fine tuned their legs ahead of the Italian Classic, riding either Paris-Nice or Tirreno Adriatico, and many go into this race with a victory already under their belts. But Milan-San Remo is a race that is hard to predict. Some editions have ended in a bunch sprint and others have ended in either a solo attack or group breakaway. 

The wide open race adds to the excitement, and while we may predict the big dogs of the WorldTour to take the win, we should never underestimate the quieter riders in the peloton who could swoop in and take the spotlight. Here are our contenders for this year's opening Monument.

Our Favourites for 2023 Milan – San Remo

***** Tadej Pogacar, Wout van Aert
**** Mathieu van der Poel, Jasper Philipsen, Mads Pedersen
*** Biniam Girmay, Søren Kragh Andersen, Magnus Cort, Matej Mohoric
** Kasper Asgreen, Julian Alaphilippe, Christophe Laporte, Fernando Gaviria
* Michal Kwiatkowski, Jasper Stuyven, Caleb Ewan, Arnaud De Lie, Arnaud Démare