"After the climb of the Poggio, I decided to put everything on Lorena Wiebes" - Lotte Kopecky buries herself to secure teammates Milano-Sanremo win
Cycling
Lotte Kopecky was arguably the big pre-race favourite for Milano-Sanremo Women 2025. In a thrilling finale however, the world champion turned into a super-domestique, helping to fire teammate Lorena Wiebes to a stunning and dramatic Monument win.
In the finale, a late attack by Elisa Longo Borghini on the descent from the Poggio to the line threatened to scupper any Team SD Worx - Protime hopes of victory. As mentioned though, Kopecky turned domestique to great effect, absolutely burying herself to bring back the Italian national champion and in the process lead out Wiebes for the final sprint. "I'm really happy," the world champion reflected afterwards in a post-race interview with VTM Nieuws. "We rode the perfect race and finished it off fantastically."
"We might have expected another team to make the race harder, but for us, at a certain point, it didn’t make sense to try because we knew we had the fastest woman in the peloton," explained Kopecky. "After the climb of the Poggio, I decided to put everything on Lorena. I didn’t want to close the gap (to Longo Borghini ed.) too quickly at first because I was worried about a counterattack, but after those last two corners, I really had to give it my all."
And in the end, it proved a telling role by Kopecky because as mentioned, Wiebes was able to power to the win in the sprint. "Very happy, and now I'm really looking forward to securing my first victory," concluded Kopecky, who had been racing her first race day of 2025 at Milano-Sanremo Women.
Lorena Wiebes wins the first Milan Sanremo Women in 20 years!
— Mathew Mitchell (@MatMitchell30) March 22, 2025
A fast tailwind race saw the sprinters take charge, especially those with some climbing legs - a late attack from ELB neutralised by Lotte Kopecky for her star sprinter#SanremoWomen #MilanSanremo pic.twitter.com/5lG68LAMCl
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- The finale of this race was an absolute mess, and the last crash that took out 1/2 of the field was caused when a double width road very suddenly funneled into a single lane, and riders had nowhere to go. I find it amazing how some of these courses get approved in the first place. So much for the UCI's campaign for improved rider safety, because if they actually cared, the organizers wouldn't have been allowed to run the finale on this parcours.
santiagobenites26-03-2025 - I hope Wout can come back. He has had 3 terrible crashes--not on par with Froome or Bernal, but at his level just a fraction of a percent is all that separates the grand champions of this new generation. Even if he is back all the way physically, those abrupt confrontations with pavement and mortality take a psychic toll, especially for a father of young kids.
Barney26-03-2025 - Everyone was so keen on free speech for a while, what happened ;-) But seriously, the problem is not so much that he gave his view as that someone follows it and spreads it, not totally unlike the schoolkids running US war games at present ;-)Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- We'll see what happens this year, hopefully he finds himself a little stronger.awp26-03-2025
- awp, the way and races he races, he probably doesn’t feel like he needs that many or specific race days before the Tour. His program isn’t very different from other years.Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- No, he just realises he’s not a one-day racer so why should he force himself?Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- Sacrificing E3 and G-W that were planned seems like he was hedging his options and only decided to do it after not winning MSR. Would he have planned to do all 5 and if so why hold back on announcing P-R if it wasn’t conditional? Guess people will get active with predictions now :-).Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- The MTB World title - there is no such thing. However, there are World titles in XCC, XCO, XCM, XCE, Enduro, Downhill......... He's after the World title in XCO, but could probably win the XCC title too, as his record is still better than anybody else, and he hasn't ridden an XCC World Cup since May 2021. Ten wins from twelve races says it all..... However, the XCO course is Crans-Montana is technical - he will surely need plenty of time back on the MTB, both training, and racing, otherwise it's going to be another doomed ambition.wipperman9526-03-2025
- Sweet. I wonder who's up on the next episode of Disgraced Ex-Doper Offers an Unsolicited Opinion?critguy26-03-2025
- well, paris-roubaix isn’t hilly AT ALL. it’s flat. the obstacle isn’t the hills it’s the cobbles, and what i’ve gathered over the years is that it’s almost impossible to imagine the beating that the body takes riding that course at race pace.OCexile26-03-2025