Ineos Grenadiers will head into Milan-San Remo with multiple options, as Filippo Ganna, Tom Pidcock, Elia Viviani, Ethan Hayter, and Michal Kwiatkowski line up for the British team.
Ganna, the time trial world champion, has assumed a leadership role, both within his team and more generally as Italy's main hope for Saturday's race.
He will line up alongside Pidcock, the team's Classics leader who heads into his second Milan-San Remo with a slight question mark after a recent illness.
Viviani has finished top 10 at La Classicissima in the past and offers a sprint option but himself has suffered with illness in the past week, while Hayter makes his debut in the race.
Kwiatkowski won Milan-San Remo in 2017 and made it over the Poggio last year but has since moved into more of a supporting role, and it's the same for Ben Swift, who finished on the podium in 2014.
The squad is rounded out by road captain Luke Rowe.
"You’ve got to think carefully about making certain attacks because after you’ve raced for almost 300 kilometres, anything can happen and every detail can be important,” Ganna told BiciPro recently about La Primavera.
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On Saturday ,the favourites to win the opening Monument of the year are Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal). Last year’s San Remo winner, Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) is out sick.
Ineos bring riders who can cover all the different strategies, from attacks on the Cipressa or the Poggio to a final kick in a sprint on the Via Roma on the Ligurian coast.
But the race itself is especially in the bullseye for any Italian rider. Viviani took his first win for Ineos on stage 1 in Provence, and along with Ganna used Tirreno-Adriatico on home soil to prepare for the final on Via Roma. However, Viviani pulled out of stage 6 with a high fever and what he called "a strong flu". It may be Ganna’s day to shine.
Pidcock is another rider on the team who has been ill - a ‘stomach bug’ took him out of Strade Bianche before he made the start line - but he has been training in the Andorra region in recent days. Kwiatkowski has only had eight days of racing so far this year, finishing in the pack at Milano-Torino.
Last year Pidcock and Kwiatkowski were part of the Ineos contingency in a large lead group that held across the Poggio, led up the climb by Ganna. However, they did not take risks on the descent, and finished 15th and 17th, respectively, with Ganna trailing in 64th.
Jackie has been involved in professional sports for more than 30 years in news reporting, sports marketing and public relations. She founded Peloton Sports in 1998, a sports marketing and public relations agency, which managed projects for Tour de Georgia, Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and USA Cycling. She also founded Bike Alpharetta Inc, a Georgia non-profit to promote safe cycling. She is proud to have worked in professional baseball for six years - from selling advertising to pulling the tarp for several minor league teams. On the bike, she has climbed l'Alpe d'Huez three times (not fast), and spends time on gravel around horse farms in north Georgia.
