Interview Milan-San Remo Women: Trixi Worrack: "It was an accident that I won"
Andreas Kublik
· 19.03.2025
About Trixi Worrack
- Dates of birth: 28 September 1981 in Cottbus
- Place of residence: Erfurt
- Size: 1.59 metres; Weight: 50 kg
- Professional from 2004 to 2021
- Important successes: Second Tour of Flanders, Tour de l'Aude 2004, Primavera Rosa 2005, World Championship Second Road 2006, Tour of California 2015, Tour of Qatar 2016
- Today, she works as a cycling coach at the Erfurt Olympic Training Centre and looks after the Vermarc junior women's team
TOUR: Trixi, if you look at the history books of cycling, you were the last winner of the women's race at Milan-San Remo in 2005. "Primavera Rosa". What memories do you have of this race day?
Trixi Worrack: It was a really cool race. It was Milan-San Remo! I'm pretty sure we rode the same course, the same finish, just an hour and a half or two hours before the men. All hell broke loose among the spectators.
TOUR: Like the men's race, the final went over the Cipressa and Poggio climbs. In the end, you won by one second ahead of the field - how did the race go from your point of view?
Trixi WorrackSo, it was really by accident that I won the race.
TOUR: By mistake?
Trixi WorrackThere were about 20 girls left at the end. I was the last rider for our sprinter at Equipe Nürnberger, Regina Schleicher. There was another bend about 350 metres before the finish. But she probably lost my rear wheel in the last bend, there was probably a gap of ten metres. But you don't close that as a sprinter because you can't sprint afterwards anyway. And then she said on the radio (on the team radio; editor's note) I was just told to drive on! Well, and then I just kept going for the last 300 metres.
TOUR: And saved a narrow lead to the finish. It is considered to be your most valuable victory in your long career, which you ended just over three years ago. How do you rate the result and the experience?
Trixi WorrackIt was a cool race. Back then there weren't so many races that we women had just like the men. Back then it was the Tour of Flanders (since 2004), Flèche Wallonne (since 1998) and Milan-San Remo (since 1999). It wasn't like today, where the women have almost all the classic races that the men have. It was a big number!
TOUR: The joy of the new common ground with the men only lasted a short time. I'm sure you would have loved to return to defend the title in 2006...
Trixi WorrackYes, it was sad and a shame when we learnt at relatively short notice at the beginning of the year that the women's race would not continue there. There was only Flèche Wallonne and Flanders for us again. It has to be said that the fans at the time only identified with the women through the men. They didn't see us on television. We had other races, but nobody knew about them.
TOUR: What does the comeback of the women's Milan-San Remo mean in your eyes?
Trixi Worrack: Of course, it's really good for women's cycling. And I definitely think it's really good that the race is back.
TOUR: On 22 March 2025, the men will start in Pavia at almost the same time as the women in Genoa on the Mediterranean coast. Both races will follow the same route along the coast to the finish on the Via Roma in San Remo....
Trixi WorrackYes, that's great. There are already a lot of spectators, they don't go there an hour before the men cross the finish line. I think that's a good thing.
TOUR: You raced as a professional cyclist until the end of 2021. Now you train young female cyclists at the Olympic training centre in Erfurt. How has women's cycling changed over the last two decades?
Trixi WorrackIt's all become much more professional, of course. I joined Equipe Nürnberger after my U23 years. They were already really well organised back then. I don't think any of us worked on the side. But that was one of the few teams back then, there were really only two or three where the riders could only ride a bike. That has definitely changed. But the leap that young female racers have to make to be able to make a living from cycling in a World Tour team today has also become bigger.
TOUR: So women's cycling has changed a lot. In men's cycling, we know the usual scenarios in the Milan-San Remo final. Your prediction: How will the women's race end in 2025?
Trixi Worrack: I think it will be a sprint with a maximum of 20 to 30 girls. The race isn't easy, but it's not so hard that no fast people will come along. The way I remember it, the last mountain is (the Poggio; ed.) not too heavy for a racer like Kopecky (World champion Lotte Kopecky; Red).
Andreas Kublik
Editor
