Strade Bianche 2025 - Analysing the contenders

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 race that brings the WorldTour spotlight to unpaved terrain has grown – in parallel with the ever-expanding gravel racing scene – since the first edition of the men's race in 2007 and the first edition of the women's race in 2015. 

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The men's field will race along a 213km route that will exceed 80km of white gravel, totalling 81.7km spread across 16 sections of white gravel roads while the women's field will race along a 138km route with 13 sectors totalling 50.3km of gravel. 

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.

There are some notable absences from the races this year including former winners Van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling Team), along with Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime), but there is still a list of top names lining up to chase the title. Cyclingnews runs the ruler over the field full of potential champions. 

Join Cyclingnews' coverage of the 2025 Strade Bianche women's and men's events on March 8 with live coverage, race reports, results, photo galleries, news and race analysis.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

Tadej Pogačar will line up as the defending champion wearing the rainbow bands of the world champion and the peloton and fans will be waiting in equal measure for the highly anticipated searing attack that has netted him victories on two occasions in Siena.

His performance a year ago saw him ride away from the field on an 81km solo rampage into Siena, win the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, and secure a record-equalling fourth consecutive Il Lombardia triumph.

His season was record-breaking, dominant and almost unparalleled, and so it is no wonder that his rivals in the peloton questioned their ability to contain the world champion at the start of this season at the UAE Tour. Indeed, they could not, as Pogačar was the fastest to the top of Jebel Jais and Jebel Hafeet to win the overall title at his first race of the year.

He heads into Strade Bianche as the outright favourite, again, and will be in a good position to win a third title in Siena with the support from UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates Tim Wellens and Isaac del Toro.

Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ)

Elisa Longo Borghini also began her season in winning form securing the overall title at the UAE Tour while wearing the new colours of UAE Team ADQ. The Italian Champion won her home race, Strade Bianche, in 2017 and has been a top finisher through every participation, standing on the podium four other times and at worst finishing eighth.

She also had one of her best seasons last year winning the Tour of Flanders for the second time in her career and the overall title at the Giro d'Italia, along with numerous other podium performances.

Her transfer from Lidl-Trek to UAE Team ADQ sparked some discussion about how well the riders could support her leadership role in stage races and one-day events, but they put all speculation to rest after their strategic all-team assault in the crosswinds on stage 2 which effectively placed Longo Borghini in pole position to win the UAE Tour before they even reached the decisive Jebel Hafeet.

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.

Tom Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team)

Pidcock has experienced a dream start to his season wearing the new colours of Q36.5 Pro Cycling. The British multi-discipline champion has secured four victories across two stage races so far in the early season, taking two wins and the overall at the AlUla Tour before winning another stage and finishing third overall at the Vuelta a Andalucia.

He also joined his team at Opening Weekend where he finished among the main field at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad before heading off to Italy to replace the cobblestones for white gravel roads at Strade Bianche.

Pidcock became the first Briton to win men's Strade Bianche after a 20km solo attack in 2023 and looks to be in a good position in the contest for victory again this year. 

In his final season with Ineos Grenadiers, Pidcock won the Amstel Gold Race and placed a focus on the Paris Olympic Games where he won the gold medal in the men's cross-country mountain bike race. 

Now with his new team, he will focus on Strade Bianche and then turn his attention to Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo and the Ardennes Classics.

Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez)

After she switched teams from SD Worx-Protime in 2024 to her new team FDJ-SUEZ, in what was the most talked about transfer in the off-season, Demi Vollering couldn't have had a better start to her season securing the overall victory at the Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana. 

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad marked the start of her lengthy Spring Classics campaign but it didn't quite go to plan, finishing third three minutes behind breakaway riders Lotte Claes (Arkea-B&B Hotels) and Aurela Nerlo (Winspace Orange Seal), who earned the top two spots on the podium.

Vollering beat her former teammate Lotte Kopecky in a sprint to the line to win Strade Bianche in 2023, so she knows how to race to win along the gravel roads throughout Tuscany and onto the punishingly steep Santa Caterina climb leading to the iconic entrance into Piazza del Campo.

She will have support from riders like Juliette Labous and Vittoria Guazzini, but trust that Vollering will be keen to follow the winning breakaway and is powerful enough to pull away from her rivals on the climb into Siena.

Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Victorious)

Hard to look past on any parcours that feature some off-road, former Gravel world champion Matej Mohorič is certainly a contender for his compatriot Pogačar to think about.

The Bahrain Victorious rider isn't coming into Strade Bianche in the best form, having finished 150th at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and not finishing Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, however, he's shown his ability to perform on the white Tuscan roads before.

Most recently, in 2024, Mohorič arrived at the Piazzo del Campo in Siena in fifth, improving on the sixth place he scored the year prior. The Slovenian certainly has the experience to perform in Strade too, having raced the Italian Classic for seven of the past eight years.

With great climber and three-time top-ten finisher at Strade Bianche, Pello Bilbao also on Bahrain Victorious' roster, Mohorič and the Spaniard should be right up there in the fight for at least a podium.

Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)

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.

The 2024 Tour de France stage 4 winner will this year also have both lining up alongside her and the improvement in her results on the run in races could indicate that she's coming in with form that may give her that little bit extra in the finale.

Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers)

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 (Canyon-Sram zondacrypto)

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.

Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ)

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.

Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime)

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.

Honourable mentions

• Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike)
• Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility)
• Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek)
• Kimberley Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal)
• Pello Bilbao (Bahrain-Victorious)
• Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal)
• Thalita de Jong (Human Powered Health)
• Ben Healy (EF Education First-EasyPost)
• Liane Lippert (Movistar)
• Kévin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels)