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And they’re off! The 2026 Strade Bianche is officially underway.
OFFICIAL START
Early predictions of it being a mild, dry day have come into fruition, and so the peloton are set to take on the infamous gravel roads in their dry form, rather than the wet mud that has been the case in some recent editions.
Tadej Pogačar at the start, about to begin his mission to get his hands on that trophy once more.
The men are on the move – they’re making their way through Siena towards the official start, which is only a matter of minutes away.
We’re still waiting for the men to get going, but the women’s race is already well underway and into the gravel sectors. You can follow along with all the action here with Cyclingnews.
Also potentially playing against Tadej Pogačar’s strengths are changes made to the route. After years of getting harder and harder, the organisers have this time tweaked it to make it shorter, feature less gravel sectors, and therefore less brutally difficult – which will (in theory at least) make it harder for the Slovenian to ride away from the rest of the field as he has in previous editions.
And then there’s the factor of the other riders catching up, especially a new generation ready to rise – epitomised by 19-year-old Paul Seixas. Today the stunningly-talented teenager makes his Strade Bianche debut, and is braced for a duel against Pogačar in what could become a great new rivalry.
Will this year’s edition be quite so straightforward for Pogačar? Not necessarily. As sublime as the Slovenian has been these past two seasons, those standards he has set are impossibly high to maintain for too long, he inevitably must peak eventually – could that peak have already come?
Strade Bianche is also a race Pogačar knows…
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