What is the Poggio? Inside the decisive climb of Milan-San Remo

Of the 5 Monumental Classics of biking, each race has its iconic factors, whether or not they’re climbs, cobbled sectors or famed historic areas.

Paris-Roubaix has the brutal Trouée d’Arenberg, the Tour of Flanders has the punishing Koppenberg, and so forth. The first Monument of the season, Milan-San Remo, would not provide up something fairly as fearsome as these challenges, but it surely does have one icon.

Nestled on the finish of a 300km marathon of a experience within the males’s race, the Poggio di San Remo is the decisive spot on the Milan-San Remo route for each women and men and probably the most well-known a part of the longest race on the calendar.

Measuring in at 4km and a median gradient of a mere 3.6%, the hill mendacity to the east of San Remo is not precisely a scary prospect, even for a Sunday membership run. But on San Remo Saturday, at virtually 40kph after as much as seven hours within the saddle? It’s a really completely different story.

In a race the place, frankly, little can occur for hours on finish, the Poggio is the must-watch second of the day – its significance to the result of Milan-San Remo standing above and past related decisive moments of different races.

The Poggio takes on outsized significance provided that it’s, in any case, solely a brief stretch of highway – simply 3.7km in complete – within the longest one-day race on the calendar. The battle for place main as much as the right-hand flip off the Corso Giuseppe Mazzini, and the blistering tempo set on the way in which up, is testomony to that.

And whereas the race has been run since 1907, it was solely in 1960 that the Poggio was added, due to Vincenzo Torriani, the person who put the Muro di Sormano on the Il Lombardia map and who organised the Giro d’Italia from 1946 to the early Nineties. Milan-San Remo actually would not be the identical with out the legendary race boss.

At the 2022 version of the race, Matej Mohorič demonstrated the significance of Torriani’s legacy with a devastating, dropper post-aided solo assault on the way in which down, having been among the many choose lead group excessive.

In 2023, Mathieu van der Poel made his blistering solo assault on the Poggio, with a textbook tactical timing that paved the way in which for his race victory.

In so doing, he took the quickest time on the climb in race historical past, finishing it in 5:40. As is the pattern in professional biking proper now, the report did not stand lengthy because the 2024 version rolled over the climb considerably faster and Strava at present lists Filippo Ganna as having the quickest ascent with a time of 5:31. That velocity did not depend for a lot, although, because the 2024 version resulted in a dash gained by Jasper Philipsen.

The ladies’s QoM belongs to Ilaria Sanguineti of Lidl-Trek, however that ought to all change after the primary Milan-San Remo Women.

Back in 2020, within the pandemic-delayed version, the all-star pairing of Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe sprinted for the road on the Via Roma after escaping excessive. In 2018, Vincenzo Nibali soloed to the win after attacking halfway up the hill, a uncommon feat within the fashionable race even when the mass dash finishes of years passed by now appear consigned to historical past.

Sure, the extra versatile sprinters could make it excessive in place – names like Michael Matthews, Caleb Ewan, and Peter Sagan have been typically a part of the lead group on the end. But most of the time the race, and the attacking, is made by the puncheurs.

The race will be, and infrequently is, misplaced on the way in which up the climb, however the highway down the opposite aspect can be very important. From the highest, there’s 5.5km of racing between the riders and victory, and with greater than half of that taken up by the downhill, it is no shock that blitzing the descent is essential to success.

Speeds reaching in extra of 70 and even 80kph are frequent on a highway the place digital camera motorbikes typically battle to maintain up within the chaos. It’s no shock that Nibali’s successful experience is up there within the Strava rankings; the Italian lies second total at a median velocity of 56.4kph and a time of three:12. Simon Clarke, who completed thirty eighth in 2021, holds the record, although, a second faster. Mohorič’s well-known experience, in the meantime, clocked in at 3:30.

The Poggio: it is simply 3,700 metres lengthy with 136 metres of elevation, however comparatively talking it is maybe probably the most influential climb on the calendar.