Surprising absolutely no one, Tadej Pogačar successfully soloed to Il Lombardia victory in Bergamo, Italy, to close out another sensational season. What's more, this is his fifth victory from five attempts – not to mention his fifth Monument podium of 2025, and the tenth Monument win of his career – meaning he ties with Fausto Coppi, but exceeds 'Il Campionissimo' by completing the feat in consecutive years.
Pogačar set out alone 33 km from the line, a few kilometres from the top of the Passo di Ganda (9.3 km at 7.1%) after catching Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek), the lone survivor from the breakaway. The American had left behind his fellow attackers on the longest climb of the day over 82 km from Bergamo in an effort to foil the rampaging Slovenian, but the world champion made light work of placing the cherry on top of his extraordinary season.
For seven years in a row, I've said, 'this is my best season so far', and again, I can say: this is the best season so far."
Instead of trying to stretch out a one-line story into a fully-fledged race report, we've decided instead to wrap up the last Monument of the season in a gallery. So feast your eyes on the autumnal majesty of Lombardy in October, with its rusting forests, rolling roads, and long shadows – and some bike racers for good measure.
[race_result id=24 stage_id=0 count=10 gc=0 year=2025]
Majka, Salvatore Puccio, Pieter Serry, Simone Petilli and Louis Meintjes were all given a handsome farewell by their colleagues and rivals at the start in Como.
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