Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel and Filippo Ganna crack three decades old climbing record on Cipressa by more than 20 seconds

Sunday, 23 March 2025 at 10:38

The 2025 Milano-Sanremo was decided on Cipressa and it was for the first time in decades that the penultimate climb of La Primavera held such significance for the race outcome.

Nobody in their right sense would've attack on the Cipressa (5.6 km at 4.3%) - a climb the riders top with more than 20 kilometers to go. But the again, Tadej Pogacar is not afraid to venture on such adventure. Everyone knew what was up when the Slovenian ordered his teammates to absolutely smash the bottom slopes of Cipressa, yet only Mathieu van der Poel, Filippo Ganna (and briefly Romain Grégoire) could keep up with Slovenian's accelerations.

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Obviously, the leading trio must've ridden up this climb pretty fast. How fast? Well, they've broken the revious record that stood for nearly three decades by more than twenty seconds.

Back in 1996, the duo Gabriele Colombo and Alexander Gontchenkov attacked away from peloton on the Cipressa, bridged to the breakaway that was still up on the road and ultimately fought it out for the victory.

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15 Comments

Pogboom 23 March 2025 at 10:20+ 225

According to Tadej's Strava upload, he went up the Cipressa at an average speed of 37.6kph. Rocket ship!

He did the 5.63km verified 'Cipressa' Strava segment in 8:59 minutes, which has a 4.3% average grade and total elevation gain of 229m. Naturally, he got the Strava KOM.

Mistermaumau 23 March 2025 at 22:41+ 3552

But he wasn’t the only one ;-)

Mistermaumau 23 March 2025 at 20:25+ 3552

I’ve often told Strava they’re figures suck, others don’t seem to notice. The figures you’ve given don’t add up. Something has to be wrong, as it very often is there and when the base figures are wrong, everything derived is wrong too.

Front242 23 March 2025 at 24:41+ 20

All 3 of them went to doping control

Jumpyjohn 22 March 2025 at 23:34+ 204

What was the wind direction?

RidesHills 23 March 2025 at 18:33+ 713

hey look, an insinuating question from 2 years ago! I mean, sure, announcers mentioned tail wind, but whatever. That wasn't going to matter today, not with the 2 best classics riders of the past many generations (you have to go back to the 70s to see two people dominate like this, and even Merckx and de Vlaeminck never managed to win 2 each in the same year, the way Pogacar and Van der Poel have done in the past 2 years).

Mistermaumau 23 March 2025 at 14:54+ 3552

Why is that relevant when discussing speed?

RidesHills 23 March 2025 at 19:31+ 713

Two riders unlike any others over the past few decades, during this era of carb fueling, seems relevant to me.

Mistermaumau 24 March 2025 at 23:09+ 3552

So? Big news, 3 of the fastest riders ever after nicely warming up in Z2 for hours battle it out to the limit on a hill with tailwind and break a 20 year old record with far superior tech and methods, big deal. It happens in every sport, regularly. Nothing mysterious

Mistermaumau 24 March 2025 at 23:10+ 3552

Sorry, 30 years old. How many 30y old records are left in Athletics, 1, max 2 maybe

Mistermaumau 24 March 2025 at 23:16+ 3552

Also, can you be clearer about your Merckx point, don’t quite understand what you’re getting at since he won 3 monuments per year in 4 years, 3 consecutively, MSR 7 times, MVDP is the first in over 20 years to win it twice.

RidesHills 25 March 2025 at 02:58+ 713

I'm coming to realize that answering your questions will just lead down a rabbit hole of debate. I'd rather avoid that, and instead celebrate the amazing things we see in front of us. Have a good day!

Senna1960 25 March 2025 at 02:58+ 304

RiderHills...well said, the guy is a pain in the arse. He talks utter crap most of the time and off comment. Just ignore the sad little man.

RidesHills 25 March 2025 at 02:26+ 713

To be clear, I won't comment on another person or try to change what they do, and I won't uses language like you just did. I can only determine what I do, and I'd like to spend my time celebrating the incredible riding we see and enjoy it as much as possible. I'm a fan, I'd rather be a fan in awe than one going into debates online.

Mistermaumau 24 March 2025 at 23:25+ 3552

Fine by me, was just trying to understand why you felt Tadej’s and MVDP’s 2 per year was more interesting than 3 and 1 or with the others thrown in the mix. Up to now results of the two eras are not very different but it may have been more interesting to compare the number of races where both actually CONFRONTED each other. I’m pretty sure TP and MVDP don’t have a hope in hell of offering nearly as much rivalry, many years the other 2 did 2 or 3 monuments together, in 1975 they even both did all 5! And that’s without counting classics. Compared to that it sure looks as if today’s riders try to avoid the others. You’re right to spend your time otherwise if you prefer I enjoy learning stuff from people with their personal view, whether I agree or not, debate is a great tool for that but obviously no longer fashionable in the age of Twitter where stating is more important than reasoning. Enjoy the racing/your rides, whatever.