Milano-Sanremo 2024 - Prediction

Saturday March 16th 2024: Pavia - San Remo (288 km)

Who will win Milano-Sanremo 2024 according to the computer? La Primavera will start in Pavia (!?) and finish after 288 kilometers in Sanremo. Will it be another waiting game until Pogacar and van der Poel launch their attack on the Poggio? Or will we finally witness an elite-group escaping before the Poggio climb? The first scenario seems most likely. One thing seems clear, UAE Team Emirates will want a hard race. Flying up the Capi, the Cipressea (5.5km at 4.1%) and the Poggio di Sanremo (3.7km at 3.7%). And some fast descending into Sanremo..

📺Eurosport 1 (10.00u), Sporza (?)
⏰10.00 u
🏁16.00 u
⛅️Sunny, light wind, 17 degrees 

Stats Milano-Sanremo

After some first tasteful classics, with the unique highlight being Pogačar's 81 kilometer long solo in Strade Bianche, Milano-Sanremo is the first monument of 2024. We will take you through some striking statistics before the start of MSR next Saturday. .

Monument-experts

Our compatriot Hennie Kuiper is the rider with the most starts and finishes in monuments in his career. After 2023, Greg Van Avermaet has achieved 52 finishes in 56 participations. Among active riders, Boasson Hagen stated in most: he has participated in a monument 40 times to date. Kristoff is the second Norwegian at the top. He will appear at the start of a monument for the 37th time on Saturday.  

Then we zoom in on participation in Milano-Sanremo. Davide Cimolai is the only active rider who has been at the start of La Primavera more often (12 times) than Kristoff (11 times). The leader of Team Visma - Lease a Bike, Christophe Laporte, is at the start for the 10th time in a row. This is the largest number of consecutive starts at Milano-Sanremo by riders participating in 2024.

Preparing for Milano-Sanremo

In recent history, a good performance in the Tirreno-Adriatico (more often than a good result in Paris-Nice) is an indicator for a podium in Milano-Sanremo. Since 2000, it has happened no fewer than nineteen times that a stage winner in Tirreno-Adriatico finished top-3 in Sanremo a week later. The same happened 'only' eight times for a stage winner of Paris-Nice. Julian Alaphilippe was the last stage winner of either Tirreno-Adriatico or Paris-Nice to win La Primavera in the same season (in 2019). As the GC winner in Paris-Nice last year, Pogačar finished fourth in San Remo. However, the winners of most recent editions of Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico will not be at the start of Milan-San Remo this year; Jorgenson and Vingegaard skip this monument. McNulty (3rd Paris-Nice) will appear at the start on Saturday, but he will mainly have to work for Pogi. 

Favorites

There are three big favorites for monument victory next Saturday: Pogačar, Van der Poel and Pedersen. They can all achieve beautiful and unique performances. Pedersen can become the first Dane to win in Sanremo. If Pogačar wins, he will be the first rider since Gilbert (and 10th in history) to have 4 of the 5 monuments on his palmares. In addition, it is quite unique that the winner of MSR did not ride Tirreno or Paris-Nice the week before. In 2022, Mohoric won Milano-Sanremo without preparation in Tirreno or Paris-Nice. Furthermore, Van Aert did that (due to COVID) and before that Chiapucci (1991) and Moser (1984) were the last with a victory in La Primavera without preparation. The latter fact would also apply this year to Mathieu van der Poel, who is making his season-debut in the Italian monument.

Talking about Van der Poel, since the Poggio-climb is part of Milano-Sanremo (1960), a rider never won La Primavera at the first raceday of the season. Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi were the last to win MSR at their first raceday of the season in 1947 and 1946 (thanks to the research of @jonascreteur and @velostatistics). 

Moreover, Mathieu van der Poel would be the first rider in fourty years who wins La Primavera as a reigning champion. He would enter a unique list of Merckx, Binda, Saronni and Gimondi. MVDP would also be the first male Dutch rider to win a Monument in the rainbow jersey.

To Cipressa or not to Cipressa?

The big question we are all asking is: will Pogacar attack before the Poggio? In recent editions UAE Team Emirates made hard race at the Cipressa, but the attack came at the Poggio di Sanremo. Last rider to win La Primavera after a attack before the Poggio was Colombo (1996). In 63 editions, 11 times a rider won after escaping before that final hill.

This generation loves writing history, will we see a long-range attack on Saturday?