A women’s edition of Milan-San Remo will be raced in 2025, with the event added to the Women’s WorldTour calendar, the UCI announced on Friday.
In a round-up of announcements from its management committee during the current World Championships, the addition was confirmed, after reporting earlier this week, with the first edition happening on 22 March 2025. As a result, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, usually held the day after the men’s San Remo, is understood to have been moved a week earlier in the calendar.
The women’s San Remo will be held on the same day at the men’s event, which was first held in 1907. The men’s race is traditionally one of the longest races of the year, regularly nudging up to, if not over 300km.
The race is dubbed as a “return” by its organisers, RCS – who also organise the Giro d’Italia and Strade Bianche – as a precursor, the Primavera Classic, was held between 1999 and 2005. That race was held over the final 118km of the men’s race, including the iconic climbs of the Cipressa and the Poggio. The UCI said that the news was “further proof of the growth of women’s professional road cycling”.
A statement from RCS read: “The Sanremo Women joins the Strade Bianche Women Elite, which reached its tenth edition in 2024, and the Giro d’Italia Women, which RCS Sport organised for the first time last July, and enriches the offer of major events aimed at enhancing and promoting women’s cycling.
“The route and all the details of the event will be revealed soon.”
The existence of a women’s Milan-San Remo was reported earlier this week after an interview on the Tuttobiciweb podcast with Paolo Bellino, CEO of RCS.
“We’re working on an important 2025 season because we’ve added the women’s Milan-San Remo to the calendar,” he said. “We’re also working to grow the presence of women in all our major races, beyond what we already have at Strade Bianche.”
“I’m hugely satisfied with the outcome of the Giro d’Italia Women and it’s a pity we didn’t get to work on the project sooner,” he continued. RCS began organising the woman’s Giro this year. “The important thing is to work seriously on these projects. Women’s cycling has huge potential but it has not yet reached its full potential.”
It is unknown what route and from where the women’s San Remo would take place, with the men starting in Pavia, south of Milan, in recent years, and then heading southwest to the coast. With the men’s race known for its length, it’s possible that this could be a key part of the women’s race too, although Women’s WorldTour events are capped at 160km, with some leeway for a little extra. The women’s Tour of Flanders, for example, was 163km long this year.
With a women’s San Remo, it now means that four of the men’s Monuments have women’s equivalents, with the Italian Classic following the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. There is no news on the possibility of a women’s Il Lombardia.
Separately in the UCI’s announcement on Friday, it was confirmed that under-23 riders with professional contracts would no longer be able to take part in the under-23 category at World and Continental Championships, due to the “increasingly high level of performance of riders in this category”.
