It’s a big day for the women’s peloton on Saturday with the return of the revamped Sanremo Women. For 2025, the iconic one-day race has been included on the Women’s WorldTour calendar, meaning a historic victory is up for grabs, and there are plenty of riders who will fancy it. While the women’s race doesn’t have the over 300-kilometre distance that the men’s event is well known for, it still features the two crucial ascents of the Cipressa and the Poggio in its finale, which is where attacks always explode the men’s race each season.
We can expect a power battle between climbers like FDJ-Suez’s Demi Vollering who want to make the race as hard as possible to drop the fast finishers, and teams like Lidl-Trek who will hope to keep things together for their sprinter Elisa Balsamo. It’s going to come down to whether the sprinters can suffer enough under the pressure of attacks and if their teams are able to control things on the final flat approach to Sanremo. The women’s WorldTour season so far will also have given some hope to brave attackers who will be looking to take advantage of the big teams looking at each other and a potential stalemate like we saw at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Part of Sanremo’s magic is that it is one of the most intriguingly difficult races to predict and, according to many riders, one of the hardest to win too. However, we’ve picked out a few of the stand-out favourites we expect to see duking it out on the Italian Rivera this weekend.
Elisa Balsamo
Elisa Balsamo of Lidl-Trek is the home favourite to take victory in this edition of Sanremo Women. The Italian rider impressed at Trofeo Binda last weekend, winning the prestigious one-day race for the third time in her career, outsprinting a high-quality field after a tough, attritional race. Balsamo is a rider who has the climbing ability to be able to make it over the Cipressa and Poggio while still having enough left at the end of the race to execute a strong finishing sprint.
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She’ll be well-supported by her Lidl-Trek teammates, with the likes of Lucinda Brand, Lizzie Deignan and Anna Henderson all combining to make a formidable lead-out train for Balsamo if she can make it to the finish line in Sanremo unscathed. After her performance at Binda, all eyes will be on Lidl-Trek and Balsamo to control the race on Saturday, however, so the American team will need to cope with the pressure of having favourite status and be prepared to chase down the inevitable opportunistic attackers.
Lotte Kopecky
Sanremo Women will be Lotte Kopecky of SD Worx-Protime’s first competition of 2025. The world champion is planning to make her season debut at one of the biggest women’s races on the calendar – a bold and somewhat risky strategy. However, Kopecky’s performances over the last few seasons mean that the Belgian rider is still a stand-out favourite to win Sanremo, even without any road races in her legs so far this season. Her back-to-back World Championship victories have both come on circuits with punchy climbs which have similar characteristics to the Cipressa and Poggio, and Kopecky has the ability to respond to almost any race situation – she’s won from solo attacks and bunch finishes before.
Image: Chris Auld/SWpix.com
The only obstacle that the 29-year-old will have to overcome is, paradoxically, her own teammates. SD Worx-Protime have two other potential winners in their ranks with Blanka Vas (who finished second at Binda last week) and Lorena Wiebes (the fastest sprinter in the world, if she can make it over the climbs.) The Dutch team are known to go to races with multiple options when it comes to leadership. While this takes the pressure off Kopecky, it also means that there will need to be some important decision-making if Wiebes and Vas also manage to make it over the two iconic climbs in the front group by the time the finish line is approaching. Winning Sanremo in the world champion’s rainbows would be a powerful start to Kopecky’s Classics campaign, but she’ll need the full support of her team to do so.
Demi Vollering
Kopecky’s former teammate, Demi Vollering, who now rides for FDJ-Suez, is one rider who will be intent on making Sanremo as hard as possible for the fast finishers in the peloton. The Dutch rider has repeatedly proven herself as the best climber in the current Women’s WorldTour, winning both Strade Bianche and Setmana Ciclista Valenciana with confidence, so she will need to use the two climbs in Sanremo to her advantage. We can expect to see some aggressive racing from Vollering early on in the race – she will try to use the likes of Juliette Labous and Évita Muzic to help her make sure that the pace is kept high enough to put pressure on.
Image: Tornanti
Although her final sprint is respectable, Vollering’s 11th place at Trofeo Binda last weekend shows that she hasn’t got the same turn of speed as others in the peloton. Tactically, the Dutch rider often struggles to make the right choices in high-pressure situations, so this could be her downfall on Saturday. If FDJ-Suez do come to the finish line in a reduced bunch finish, they have a good option with omnium world champion Ally Wollaston who has a real chance at winning a sprint in Sanremo. However, it’s likely that Vollering going to the line solo or with only a couple of other riders will be the team’s ‘plan A’, while their Kiwi sprinter will serve as a backup plan if things go wrong for Vollering.
Elisa Longo Borghini
Another rider who won’t be shying away from an aggressive race on Saturday is UAE Team-ADQ’s Elisa Longo Borghini. Like Vollering, the Italian rider comes into her own when the road kicks up, so she will be keen to cooperate with any attacks on the Cipressa and Poggio in the hope of dropping some of the sprinters. Longo Borghini hasn’t had the start to the season which she would have necessarily hoped for – after winning the UAE Tour she was struck with illness at Strade Bianche meaning she didn’t perform at her usual standard.
Image: Tornanti
The 33-year-old looked better at Trofeo Binda a week later but eventually ended up finishing in 10th place, unable to really compete against the likes of Balsamo in the final sprint. It’s for this reason that Longo Borghini will be especially keen to come to the finish with other climbers and general classification-style riders. UAE Team ADQ have another strong option in their line-up with Silvia Persico, with whom Longo Borghini should be able to work well tactically in the finale of Sanremo. Persico finished in second place behind her team leader on Jebel Hafeet at the UAE Tour and is a formidable Classics rider with a good turn of finishing speed. If they want to challenge riders from SD Worx-Protime and FDJ-Suez, UAE Team ADQ are going to need to approach this race creatively and use strength in numbers in order to create the ideal race-finishing situation.
Marianne Vos
Marianne Vos is a rider who needs little introduction. The Visma-Lease a Bike woman has won almost everything there is to win when it comes to professional cycling (she’s a three-time world champion, an Olympic gold medalist, a five-time Flèche Wallonne winner and a four-time Trofeo Binda winner, to name just a few of her stand-out results). Now after over two decades as a pro, Vos is still performing at the highest level, winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Amstel Gold Race last season. She’s only raced once so far in 2025 at Trofeo Binda where she finished in fourth place in the reduced bunch kick. Sanremo is, on paper, a race tailor-made for Vos on her best day. She has unmatchable explosive power after hard races and can continue to produce it even after a heavy day of climbing.
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The Dutch rider seems comfortable and well-supported as part of the Visma set-up, and she also has Pauline Ferrand-Prévot on her team, another favourite for Sanremo. The French rider’s third place at Strade was an indication that she’s still able to compete with the best of the best – if Visma-Lease a Bike can use Vos and Ferrand-Prévot well together on Saturday then the team could be unstoppable.
Puck Pieterse
While she might not have the age and experience as some of the other stand-out favourites for Sanremo Women, Puck Pieterse has to be included as one to watch on Saturday. The young Dutch rider has been incredibly impressive ever since she exploded onto the road racing scene with her fifth place at Strade Bianche in 2023. Since then, Pieterse has been up there with the very best in the Classics – she didn’t finish outside the top-10 in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Ronde van Drenthe, Trofeo Binda, Gent-Wevelgem or the Tour of Flanders last year. She then went on to win the white jersey and take a stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift later that season.
Image: Tornanti
In 2025, the Fenix-Deceuninck rider looks as strong as ever, with fourth place at Nieuwsblad and seventh at Strade Bianche and Trofeo Binda. Even when she finds herself outnumbered by bigger teams in the finales of important races, Pieterse’s tactical prowess and technical abilities help her to ensure she is in the right place at the right time. The route and requirements of Sanremo Women are perfect for the 22-year-old and since none of the women’s peloton have competed on these climbs before, it’s a relatively level playing field when it comes to race experience too. If Pieterse goes into the race with confidence, she should have the ability to follow any attacks on the Cipressa and Poggio as well as contest the finish if it is a reduced bunch kick.
Other contenders
Sanremo is a notoriously tricky race to predict at the best of times, let alone in its first edition for the women’s peloton in two decades. It’s hard to imagine exactly how it will play out – especially given some of the strange tactics we’ve seen in other races so far this season – so this means that there are a number of riders in contention for victory. Cat Ferguson of Movistar impressed in her WorldTour debut at Binda last weekend, sprinting to third place in esteemed company. If the Spanish team decides to ride for their 18-year-old superstar on Saturday, she could be in with a shot of taking a historic victory. Liane Lippert is another fast finisher for Movistar who will be an option should Ferguson struggle with the final two climbs on the route.
Another team with multiple options for a fast finish is Liv-Alula-Jayco. The likes of Letizia Paternoster and Ruby Roseman-Gannon are both strong contenders who can make it over the climbs and sprint well at the end, though they will need to hope that attacks from the likes of Vollering on the Cipressa aren’t too damaging to the rest of the peloton.
Likewise, Canyon//SRAM comes to Sanremo with a number of cards to play. The German squad suffered with some bad luck at Strade Bianche after a crash took out their Tour de France Femmes champion Kasia Niewiadoma and plenty of her teammates, but the Polish rider is back training and will enjoy the punchy climbs in Sanremo if she has recovered enough. Cecilie Uttrup-Ludwig should also thrive on the Cipressa and Poggio, but Canyon//SRAM have a strong sprint option with Chloe Dygert too.
Finally, there are riders who we should keep in mind for opportunistic attacks in the final run-in to the finish line in Sanremo. If the big teams with sprinters begin to look at each other, EF Education-Oatly will sense any hesitation to make a move with riders like Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner and Tour de France Femmes stage winner Cédrine Kerbaol.
