Milano-Torino – A race with a long history
Castelli traces its roots back to 1876, when Vittore Gianni founded his fine tailoring business in the heart of Milan. That same year saw the first edition of Milano-Torino, the oldest bicycle race still on the calendar today, at 142 years.
Now in its 99th edition, the 200-kilometer end-of-season cycling battle that has been won by great climbing specialists and puncheurs is set to put on another show, with the riders tackling the Colle di Superga for the first time at 24 kilometers to the finish.
The spectacular hill overlooking Turin is a real climb, with a gradient averaging 9.1 percent over 4.9 kilometers. The iconic hill will thin out the peloton and see some riders try to attack in an attempt to build a gap there and on the technical descent that leads back to Turin before the second and final ascent of the hill with 5 kilometers to go.
The 2016 edition was won by Diego Rosa who soloed to victory on the run into Torino, 3:13 minutes ahead of Sergio Henao and Alberto Contador.
How will Diego and the rest of Team Sky perform today?
Here’s their lineup for the 2018 edition of Milano-Torino:
Egan Arley Bernal Gomez
David De la Cruz
Kenny Elissonde
Sebastian Henao Gomez
Sergio Luis Henao
Gianni Moscon
Diego Rosa
The 2017 edition was won by Rigoberto Uran, who soloed to victory after attacking on the final climb of the Superga, ahead of Adam Yates and Fabio Aru.
A LITTLE HISTORY
Milano-Torino, a race with a long history and with a profile and finale that perhaps
gives it potential to become a true climber’s classic.
The race is the oldest classics of all, dating all the way back to 1876 and now in its 99th edition. For the majority of its history, the race was run one week before Milano–SanRemo and was seen as an important preparation race for the Spring Classics, however in 1987 Milano–Torino was moved to October to form a triple-race-week with Il Lombardia and Gran Piemonte.
The race course: It’s a single-day race that starts northwest of Milano. The course heads in a southwest direction to finish in Torino in the region of Piemonte. After 170 fairly flat kilometers the riders will climb Colle di Superga for the first time (repeated two times), starting from different sides with a quick dip down to Torino in-between.
The Superga climb is often the springboard for a group of riders to escape before the finish. From the top of the Superga it is a fast technical descent into Turin. Many riders will, of course, have ‘Il Lombardia’ on Saturday at the back of their mind but with a course that isn’t too demanding apart from the finale, it might be less of a concern to go hard on the Superga.
Markus Zberg holds the record average speed of 45.75kph when he won in 1999.
Milano–Torino is one of the fastest of the classics, Walter Martin won the 1961 edition at an average speed of 45.094 kilometres per hour and this stood for a time as the fastest speed in a classic race. The current average speed record of 45.75 km/hr was set in 1999 by Swiss rider Markus Zberg.