It’s really a question of ‘from how far?’ at this point. After so many long-distance fliers so far this season – most recently, 101 km of action at the World Championships, then 37 km solo at the Giro dell’Emilia – Tadej Pogačar went after his fourth-consecutive Lombardia title with a little over 48 km left to race.
Dressed all in white and rainbow bands, Pogačar’s name was on everybody’s lips at the start in Bergamo. It was the world against the world champion, and the world champion won, sealing a fourth-consecutive win at the ‘Race of the Falling Leaves’ to tie with Alfredo Binda and close in on Fausto Coppi’s record five wins – the 26-year-old Slovenian also becoming the most-successful non-Italian, but that’s small fry for Pogačar.
In the race for second, it was briefly a steely eyed battle between Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), Enric Mas (Movistar) and Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny), but the double Olympic champion broke clear on the long penultimate descent off the Sormano. The race for third was the most exciting in the end, Mas and Van Eetvelt joined first by Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates), then Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), with the Italian pouncing on them all to snatch the final step on the podium.
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How it happened
- There was one man heads and shoulders above the competition as the peloton embarked on the final Monument of 2024, and with Pogačar on for another history-making ride, his UAE Team Emirates raced Il Lombardia as if they were defending a general classification lead.
- There was a flush of anticipation as a large and strong group formed out of numerous attacks, the 23-strong breakaway comprising the likes of Dani Martínez (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers), Einer Rubio (Movistar), Tiesj Benoot and Wilco Kelderman (Visma-Lease a Bike), Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-AlUla), Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal-QuickStep), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) and Axel Laurance (Alpecin-Deceuninck). The group found an advantage of about four minutes 30 seconds at around the halfway mark, but their days were numbered.
- The breakaway began to completely disintegrate on the Colma di Sormano, the longest climb of the race at 13.1 kilometres, average 6.5%. Ultimately, Xandro Meurisse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was the boldest and bravest, followed closely by Arensman – the only two from the breakaway to finish inside the top 20.
- All the while, the favourites group was led by UAE Team Emirates, whose effort shredded the weariest legs off the tail of the pack, as ailing breakaway riders were swept up at the front. Jan Christen and Finn Fisher-Black were responsible for the long early tows, two of the youngest riders on the team and in the race. Indeed, at 20 years old (and 108 days) Christen was the youngest in the peloton, a whole 21 years and 209 days younger than the oldest competitor, the retiring Domenico Pozzovivo (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè).
- While everyone waited for Pogačar to let fly, Giulio Ciccone was the first to make a move from the
yellow jerseyfavourites group, taking advantage of the caught riders as he picked through the bodies.
- However, the Italian was soon brought back, and moments later, just as Meurisse and Arensman were within touching distance, Pogačar made his move.
- The white skinsuit really seemed to pop as the world champion zipped up the gradient, seemingly on fast forward compared to his rivals.
- Behind him, Evenepoel was fairly quick to react, albeit having to dodge around the caught riders, but even so, the Olympic champion seemed as interested – if not more so – in seeing who was on his case as he was in Pogačar’s advantage.
- By the top of the long penultimate climb, Pogačar had 1:07 over a small chase group of Evenepoel, Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) and Enric Mas (Movistar), the Olympic champion forced – begrudgingly – to do the lion’s share of the work.
- Evenepoel, though, was able to take advantage of his superior descending skills and local knowledge to find and extend a gap on the fast ride down towards Lake Como – the races for first and second seemed run.
- On the descent, Evenepoel was able to hold Pogačar at more or less the same margin, but the elastic soon snapped.
- Pogačar continued to extend his lead all the way to the finish, where he crossed the line with more than three minutes to spare.
- Evenepoel finished a strong second, the best of the rest, and demons well and truly put to bed four years after suffering a horrible crash on a descent at the 2020 edition – today’s race did pass the same spot, but in the opposite direction, and Pogačar’s attack came 3 km after the bridge where it happened, just as Evenepoel expected.
- Third place ended up being the most exciting competition of the day. Sivakov joined Van Eetvelt and Mas with 17 km to go, and was then the first to put in a proper attack at the foot of the final climb of the day. But a large chase group was closing in, and among them was Ciccone.
- After being the first to attack on the Sormano, Ciccone did not wait around before attacking his new companions at the top of the San Fermo della Battaglia a little over 5 km from the line, and the 29-year-old just about held it all the way.
- Just a few seconds after Ciccone finished, late attacker Ion Izagirre (Cofidis) led home Mas, Sivakov and Van Eetvelt for the minor placings.
Quotes of the day
Pogačar was quick to pay tribute to his UAE teammates at the finish, all of whom helped to deliver the world champion to the point at which he attacked – which was as carefully planned as ever.
We planned this because the race is so hard that in the end, the last 40km is more or less man-to-man, and I knew that if I had a decent gap at the top, I could manage to come to the finish. You never know if it happens, or not.”
Best of the rest was Remco Evenepoel, for whom second is the best result from four attempts at the Italian Monument where the young Belgian famously crashed in 2020.
Honestly it feels a bit like a personal victory. I think everybody knows the last time that I raced from Bergamo to Como how it ended, and now finishing as best of the rest, it feels like a personal victory, and it makes me really proud. I’m not going to say emotional because I’m quite over the moment of four years ago, but I need to be honest, it feels really good to be second today.”
Brief analysis:
- After a horror crash in 2020, Evenepoel made his return to Il Lombardia in 2021 and raced to 19th place – as Pogačar took his first win – then skipped 2022, before taking ninth from the second chase group in 2023. His return in 2024 marked the first time he’d raced it in this direction since his crash, but it’s an area the young double Olympic champion has come to know well, so he knew exactly how to race to the “personal victory” that second represented. That his margin of – err – defeat was three seconds greater than his deficit in 2021 only speaks to the winner’s supremacy at the close of a sensational season.
- As for Pogačar, the Slovenian caps off a truly historic season with a 25th victory from just 57 race days. That’s also the largest number of victories in one season of this century; it’s also more victories than 11 out of the 18 WorldTeams have achieved this season in their entirety – ouch. And he’s far from done. As Pogačar himself said after Il Lombardia: “Let’s see where we will be after the career.”
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