Lotte Kopecky Sprints to Victory in 2026 Women's Milan-Sanremo After Dramatic Crash

Lotte Kopecky of SD Worx-Protime won the 8th edition of the women's Milan-Sanremo on Saturday, March 21, 2026, sprinting to victory from a five-rider lead group on the Via Roma in Sanremo after 156 kilometers raced along the Ligurian coast from Genoa. The 30-year-old Belgian beat Swiss rider Noemi Rüegg of EF Education-Oatly and Italian Eleonora Gasparrini of UAE Team ADQ to claim her first Monument victory at the Classicissima. Dutch rider Puck Pieterse of Fenix-Deceuninck finished fourth, while Polish rider Dominika Włodarczyk of UAE Team ADQ completed the top five. The race was heavily overshadowed by a severe crash on the descent of the Cipressa, approximately 18 kilometers from the finish, which eliminated several top contenders and sent at least one rider to hospital.

Silvestri hospitalized after flying over barrier The crash on the Cipressa descent proved the defining and most alarming moment of the race. Debora Silvestri, a 27-year-old rider from Veneto competing for Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi, was catapulted over a guardrail and fell several meters onto the road below, landing on her head and back. It was Silvestri's first participation in the Milan-Sanremo. Race medical staff attended to her immediately at the scene, and her team confirmed she remained conscious throughout. She was subsequently transferred to hospital for further treatment. Kasia Niewiadoma, the Polish cyclist who won the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, also crashed heavily over the barrier on the same descent and was forced to withdraw from the race. Kim Le Court of AG Insurance-Soudal and Margaux Vigié were among the other riders caught in the incident. According to commentary cited by TVN24.pl, the descent had long been considered dangerous, with questions raised about the absence of protective barriers or padding at the point where riders went over the edge. „Why wasn't this secured with some kind of mattress? So much is said about how dangerous this descent is. The riders fell from several meters onto concrete. Nightmarish scenes” — Karol Dzimabor via TVN24.pl

Kopecky launches sprint from Poggio breakaway group The decisive move in the race came on the final climb of the day, the Poggio di Sanremo, where a group of five riders broke clear a few hundred meters from the summit. That group comprised Kopecky, Rüegg, Gasparrini, Pieterse, and Włodarczyk, and they descended together to the finish in Sanremo. Lorena Wiebes, the 2025 winner and pre-race favorite, was unable to follow the accelerations near the top of the Poggio and was dropped, leaving her to chase with a group that never closed the gap. Wiebes declined to contribute to the chase because her SD Worx-Protime teammate Kopecky was already in the lead group. In the final sprint on Via Roma, Kopecky launched from the front and Rüegg came close but could not overtake the Belgian. Kopecky credited a confidence boost from an earlier win that week. „Ik had veel vertrouwen na mijn overwinning in Nokere. De koers is ook perfect verlopen voor mij. Ik ben heel blij dat ik het kon afmaken.” (I had a lot of confidence after my victory in Nokere. The race also went perfectly for me. I am very happy that I was able to finish it off.) — Lotte Kopecky via De Standaard

Fourth Monument adds to Kopecky's growing palmares The Milan-Sanremo victory is Kopecky's fourth Monument and her 55th professional victory, according to De Standaard. She previously won the Tour of Flanders three times, in 2022, 2023, and 2025, and Paris-Roubaix in 2024. The race was run over 156 kilometers entirely along the Ligurian coast, a format introduced in the race's current edition that differs from the men's route across the Po Valley. Several high-profile riders were absent from the start: Marianne Vos did not compete due to her father's health, and Elisa Longo Borghini was absent due to illness. Rüegg's second place marked her second consecutive podium finish at Milan-Sanremo, while Gasparrini's third place mirrored a result she had also achieved at the race the previous year, according to SRF News.

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The women's Milan-Sanremo, known as Sanremo Donne, was first held in its current format as a WorldTour event in 2024, making the 2026 edition the 8th running of the women's race in its modern form. The race follows the Ligurian coastline from Genoa to Sanremo, incorporating the same final obstacles as the men's classic — the three capi, the Cipressa, and the Poggio — but on a shorter overall route. Lorena Wiebes won the 2025 edition of the race. Kopecky is the 2023 and 2024 UCI Elite Women's World Road Race Champion.

55 (professional victories) — Kopecky's career win tally after Milan-Sanremo