the essential
The cyclist once again dominated the competition after a solitary escape of several dozen kilometers.
Insolent with ease, Tadej Pogacar won his fourth consecutive Tour of Lombardy this Saturday, October 12 in Como, equaling Fausto Coppi’s record, after a new solo rider who concludes a monumental season.
The Slovenian attacked 48.5 km from the finish to win his 25th victory alone in 2024, his second in a Monument this year after Liège-Bastogne-Liège, with more than three minutes ahead of the Belgian Remco Evenepoel .
Only one rider, the Italian sprinter Alessandro Pettacci, had won so much in one season in the 21st century, in 2005. As expected – and feared by the entire peloton -, the world champion, molded into white bib shorts and very acclaimed at the start at Bergamo, placed his attack in the difficult Sormano pass after a last big relay from his UAE teammate, Pavel Sivakov.
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He accelerated just as the group of favorites caught up with the last survivors of the morning breakaway, with around twenty riders, including four Frenchmen (Rudy Molard, Julien Bernard, Bastien Tronchon, Rémy Rochas). Barely started, the show was already over. In a scene seen and seen again in recent months, no one even tried to follow the Slovenian, who quickly built up a significant advantage, reaching the top with more than a minute ahead of his first pursuers.
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Pogacar further increased his lead in the last forty kilometers to win the 7th Monument of his career, with more than three minutes ahead of Evenepoel, whose first podium in Lombardy, and more than four minutes ahead of the Italian Guilio Ciccone. With this new triumph in the “dead leaves classic”, which allows him to match the performance accomplished by the “Campionissimo” Fausto Coppi between 1946 and 1949, Pogacar concludes in majesty one of the greatest seasons in the history of cycling.
Winner of the Tour de France, the Giro, the World Championships, the Strade Bianche, the Tour of Catalonia, the Tour of Emilia, the Grand Prix de Montréal and two Monuments, the 26-year-old Slovenian won nine of the 11 events from which he started in 2024, adding sixteen stage victories.
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Aged 26, he is the only rider to have won the Tour, the Giro, the Worlds and at least one Monument in the same year, an appellation bringing together the five greatest classics on the calendar (Milan-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Paris- Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Tour of Lombardy).
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