"After the climb of the Poggio, I decided to put everything on Lorena Wiebes" - Lotte Kopecky buries herself to secure teammates Milano-Sanremo win

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.