Insolent with ease, Tadej Pogacar won his fourth consecutive Tour of Lombardy on Saturday October 12 in Como, equaling Fausto Coppi’s record, after a new solo rider who concludes a monumental season.
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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, Italian sprinter Alessandro Pettacci, had won that 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 in Bergamo, placed his attack in the difficult Sormano pass after a last big stint from his teammate at UAE, Pavel Sivakov.
No one dares to follow…
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 gained a significant advantage, reaching the top with more than a minute ahead of his first pursuers.
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.
The beautiful harvest of 2024
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 Slovenian won nine of the 11 events in which he took the start in 2024 adding sixteen stage victories.
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).