First Milan-Sanremo organizers RCS Sport had to skip the planned inclusion of the Pompeiana climb. Now potential rain may force them to make further alterations to the course.

Milan-Sanremo was set to change from a race for sprinters to be one for the grand tour specialists when organizers RCS Sports decided to include the Pompeiana climb in the finale. Landslides, however, forced them to make a late change to remove the ascent, again tipping the balance to the sprinters.

The changed caused a late reshuffle of the start list, with Alejandro Valverde and Chris Froome both decising against doing the race and Mark Cavendish and André Greipel putting it back on their race programme. However, nothing is guaranteed when it comes to this year's edition of the Italian classic as new changes may be made.

Velonews reports that a recent landslide near Spotorno may force RCS to change the alter the course. The race can pass the town on the Via Aurelia now but with rain expected Saturday and Sunday, an alternative course is being looked at. The option is to leave Aurelia before Spotorno, climb above the town and return seaside near Noli.

The new climb will have a very mellow gradient of just 3% and comes 95km from the finish, meaning that it will have no impact on the racing. A final decision is set to be made on Thursday but it will add further fuel to the debate that has been caused by the late changes to the course.

“You’ve got to know the course before you select [your teams],” Sky’s general manager David Brailsford said.”It’s one of the joys of this sport that every year the same race has a different [route], that’s a great side of it, but what would be nice is that the course details come out early enough to make strategies.

“It’d be fair for teams to be given a lot more notice so we can sit down and prepare properly. You can get the riders in the right shape for the race rather than to do what we all do, which is choose riders for the races and wait for the course to come out to see if we got it right or not. If we had it earlier then the riders could prepare better and the racing would be better. Everyone would win.”
 

The race will take place on Sunday.