Who will win Strade Bianche? Analysing the favorites

SIENA, ITALY - MARCH 04: (L-R) Lotte Kopecky of Belgium on second place and the race winner Demi Vollering of The Netherlands and Team SD Worx cross the finish line during the Eroica - 9th Strade Bianche 2023, Women's a 136km one day race from Siena to Siena 318m / #StradeBianche / on March 04, 2023 in Siena, Italy. (Photo by Luc Claessen/Getty Images)

Returning champions Tadej Pogacar and Demi Vollering enter Strade Bianche in 2025 as major favourites (Image credit: Getty Images)

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Tadej Pogačar
Elisa Longo Borghini
Tom Pidcock
Demi Vollering
Matej Mohorič
Puck Pieterse
Michal Kwiatkowski
Kasia Niewiadoma
Romain Grégoire
Anna van der Breggen

Strade Bianche has quickly become one of the most popular one-day races of the Spring Classics season. This year's men's and women's pelotons will compete across the hilly Italian terrain with its foray onto the signature white gravel roads through Tuscany.

The event is billed as “Europe’s most southern northern classic” and it is set to bring thrilling action from both races held on March 8 in and around Siena.

The unpaved sections have played to the strengths of the multi-discipline specialists – like former winners Tom Pidcock, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert – but they certainly don't have it all their own way. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) has claimed victory in two of the last three men's editions while the women's race has through its history remained the domain of the top road specialists, with Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering the last two winners.

It will be interesting to see how the team can support her on the gravel road around Siena, but Longo Borghini has always been a savvy and opportunistic rider who has the strength to create her own winning race situations. And with teammates like Silvia Persico, who was instrumental in Longo Borghini's UAE Tour victory, and loyal lieutenant Brodie Chapman, watch for Longo Borghini to triumph in Siena again.

After taking a month off from racing after the cyclocross season, Puck Pieterse returned to the road and just missed the podium at both Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Omloop van het Hageland. Her third season of road racing, with a building calendar, has been her strongest start ahead of Strade Bianche, which has been a staple of her limited calendar.

Of course, there is an added advantage in the race with a substantial quantity of unpaved sections as Pieterse demonstrated by coming fifth in her debut in 2023. It was then a respectable thirteenth last year with the rider not having the legs to follow the final moves. Still, the strength in the team was evident with three riders from Fenix-Deceuninck in the top 20, Yara Kastelijn in 11th and Christina Schweinberger in 15th.

It was an unusually early start to the season for Michal Kwiatkowski, with the 34-year-old making the trip to the Tour Down Under for the first time and the early build paid dividends at Clásica Jaén when the former world champion took his first win in 18 months. After a tough run for the 34-year-old, with a back injury interrupting last season, and also a dry spell on team wins that at that point had extended through to July of last year, it was a much-needed boost.

The Ineos Grenadiers rider has had a break since the mid-February race and will be refreshing the race legs at Trofeo Laigueglia before taking on the race to the Piazza del Campo. It is a race where Kwiatkowski hasn't had any big results in recent seasons, with two DNFs and an 18th and 12th in the last four years but perhaps the renewed confidence and early form could help deliver a return to the pointy end of the race in which he has twice claimed victory, in 2014 and 2017.

Kasia Niewiadoma's record at Strade Bianche is scattered with top-five and podium places – her ten editions include three runner-up spots, a third and two fourth-place finishes. The only time she was outside the top ten was when she delivered a DNF in 2020, along with more than a third of the field, in an edition where the scorching heat took its toll.

After so many close run battles that top step is still missing, however, after Niewiadoma's run in 2024 it feels like there is little that she can't do. There was a clear-cut end to her win drought with La Flèche Wallonne and then she delivered the biggest of victories, holding firm to claim the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift by a nail-biting four seconds.

On top of that, Niewiadoma will have a valuable new ally on her side at Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, who is also an alternate contender for the squad. The former FDJ Suez rider was on the podium in her last participation in 2023 and has not once finished outside the top ten. The new combination should make a formidable duo that could help one of the other break through to the top step.

When Romain Grégoire made his debut for Groupama-FDJ as a 20-year-old neo-pro he was quick to show his potential at the race, finishing eighth in his first ever WorldTour event. The 2024 edition of that race didn't deliver on the same level but the season finished with a strong run as the French rider stepped onto the podium in his last two races, Veneto Classic and Giro del Veneto.

What's more he started 2025 strongly, with fourth overall at Volta ao Algarve and the win in the youth classification. He then went on to make the most of a chaotic edition of the Faun Ardèche Classic, with a collected performance that turned his second of 2024 into a win this year. As team sports director Yvon Caër said after the win "if he is at this level on the Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo, we can hope for anything".

There are also some other strong cards in the team, to support or offer an alternative, in particular Valentin Madouas, who finished second at the race in 2023 and last year took silver in the road race at the Olympic Games.

Three years of retirement certainly hasn't meant that Anna van der Breggen has ceased to be a threat. The SD Worx-Protime rider was quick to make a mark when she launched back into the racing at Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana, coming third overall. After that, she also went on to take seventh at Omloop van het Hageland with a powerful showing that left her driving multiple pivotal moves which helped set up her teammate Femke Gerritse's victory.

As formidable an effort as that was, Van der Breggen still pointed out that "I am not yet where I want to be". The build, however, looks clearly to be well on the way so there is no writing off her potential to find the podium at a race where she came third in her last participation in 2021 and won in 2018. Her small foray into gravel racing last year may even help, with the rider getting some practice in on gravel roads when she took on The Traka 100km distance and swept up second place.

Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.

Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.

She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.