Strade Bianche 2022 – Who’s riding? When is it on TV? Who can take Mathieu van der Poel’s crown?

With ‘Opening Weekend’ done and dusted, the focus shifts from Belgian cobbles to Tuscan dirt roads as both the men’s and women’s peloton head to the hilltop town of Siena for Strade Bianche. It’s the 16th edition for the men and the eighth outing for the women, with both races – billed as Europe’s most southern Northern Classic – taking place on Saturday 5th March 2022.

Already viewed as one of the most exciting and prestigious races on the men’s calendar, there are growing calls for Strade Bianche to adopt Monument status given its succession of leg-sapping climbs over a demanding gravel surface ahead of what has become an iconic finish in the Piazza del Campo in the scenic hilltop town of Siena.

Previous winners make up a veritable who’s who of seasoned classics stars, with the likes of France’s Julian Alaphilippe and Belgium’s Tiesj Benoot vying to join Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski and the retired Swiss legend Fabian Cancellara as multiple winners of the event.

While the route is peppered with punchy climbs – not least the double-digit gradient into town in the final kilometre – it’s worth remembering that an outright climber has never won any of the previous 15 editions of the men’s race, with the parcours usually suiting fast finishers who can also produce the watts when going uphill. One thousand three hundred and sixty-two watts, to be precise, if you cite the peak output of Mathieu van der Poel’s deadly attack into Siena last year, where he held over 1,000w for 20 seconds while flying up to the finish with Alaphilippe fading in his wake.

After a later position in the calendar in 2020, Strade Bianche returned to its early March slot in 2021 and there’s no change for 2022 with both the men’s and women’s race taking part on the first Saturday of March, one week after the classics curtain-raiser Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.

Starting and finishing in Siena, the men’s race will roll out at 10:45am UK time with an estimated finish around 3:30pm UK time. The women’s race starts earlier at 9:15am before a scheduled finish around 12:15pm.

Live coverage of both the men’s and women’s race will come immediately after The Breakaway on Eurosport, GCN, the Eurosport app and discovery+ from 10:30am UK time.

No Wout, no Mathieu – no fun? Not necessarily. While defending champion Van der Poel continues his return from injury and last weekend’s Omloop winner Van Aert, the 2020 champion, is instead riding Paris-Nice from Sunday, there will be three former winners on the startlist.

The 2019 champion Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) is the pick of the bunch although 2018 winner Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma) showed much promise for his new team over Opening Weekend and will hope to play a decisive role in the race. It’s now been five years since Michal Kwiatkowski picked up the second of his Strade Bianche wins but he's not part of a young Ineos Grenadiers squad that now has Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz as leader following news that Tom Pidcock has been sidelined with a stomach virus.

Lennard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe), Romain Bardet (Team DSM) and Tom Dumoulin (both Jumbo-Visma) have also pulled out: the first two because of illness and the latter following a reported Covid positive test.

Other big names to consider are Greg van Avermaet (AG2R-Citroen), Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost), Gianni Moscon and Miguel Angel Lopez (both Astana Qazaqstan), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal), Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech), Kasper Asgreen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic), Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo), Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and - drum roll - Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates).

One thing is certain: the absence of the last two winners (not to mention a host of veritable would-be contenders) should make for a more unpredictable and open race - and for fans, that can be no bad thing, even if we also relish the duels between Van Aert and Van der Poel.

In the women’s race, defending champion Chantal Van den Broek-Blaak will feature for a super-strong Team SD Worx alongside teammates Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering and Ashley Moolman, while the 2019 and 2020 winner Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) will hope to build on her Omloop Het Nieuwsblad triumph from last weekend.

Another Dutch star, Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), will hope to crack the top five for the first time from a startlist that also includes the Italian 2017 winner Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo), her Dutch teammate Ellen van Dijk, Denmark’s Cecile Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Poland’s Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon/Sram).

The men’s route is 184km long and features 11 sections of white roads, or strade bianche, through the rolling hills of Tuscany on an anti-clockwise out-and-back loop south of Siena. In total there’s 63km of gravel, the longest section being 11.9km and the shortest just 800m.

The predominantly uphill section of Monte Sante Marie is 11.5km long and comes with 54km remaining, making it a potential springboard for an attack. The biggest climb of the day is the paved ascent to Montalcino after just 60km of racing. As the riders approach Siena they will face the 15% gradients of the Colle Pinzuto ahead of a series of technical descents towards the foot of the final brutal ramp into Siena, which peaks at 16%.

Strade Bianche Donne tackles eight sections of gravel for 31.6km out of the 136km route, which also starts and finishes in Siena. The two longest sections of strade bianche from the men’s race do not feature. Instead, the focal point of the race will be the tough 9.5km San Martino in Grania uphill section of gravel. Like the men’s race, the women tackle the arduous Colle Pinzuto ahead of the showpiece finale in the Piazza del Campo.

The weather forecast for Siena on Saturday is sunny with clouds, with a max temperature of only eight degrees Celsius. But this follows a solid week's worth of rain and so some of the white roads could be a little brown and not so dusty...

With the two previous champions not present, the logical choice would be the French world champion. Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) boasts the exact skillset required to win Strade Bianche, being a punchy powerhouse capable of uphill kicks, zippy descents and a fast finish.

Third in 2014 and 2015, and fourth in 2018, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) has never won Strade Bianche but, although on good form, the succession of climbs may prove too much for the Spanish veteran.

It would be folly to discount double Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar, a rider of Merckxian all-round quality who seems capable of winning on any terrain. The 23-year-old Slovenian picked up two stage wins en route to the overall victory in the UAE Tour last week, and comes as the focal point of a solid UAE Team Emirates squad that also includes Diego Ulissi, Marc Soler and the in-form Alessandro Covi.

Pogacar was 30th in his Strade Bianche debut in 2019, 13th a year later, then 7th last time round, where he rode with a fair bit of panache. Keep up that progression and a podium finish is not beyond him. So, let’s say Alaphilippe, Benoot and Pogacar – in any order. But probably Pog.

Given her form, it’s hard to look past Annemiek Van Vleuten (Movistar) winning her third Strade Bianche Donne in four years on Saturday, although she’ll face stiff opposition from Van den Broek-Blaak, Longo Borghini, Ludwig and Vollering. Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) has never cracked the top five in Strade Bianche and this will be her first outing of the season. There would be fewer more popular winners, however, than the 34-year-old Dutch superstar.