D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu again<\/p>\n
When Poga\u010dar took off on the hardest climb of the day, the Passo di Ganda (9.3km @ 7.1%), no one even tried to follow him. (I saw the same passivity in Tuesday\u2019s Tre Valli Varesine, also won by the UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG leader after a 30-something solo.) Perhaps it\u2019s because it\u2019s the end of the year and everyone (except Poga\u010dar) is tired, or they decided that chasing an impossible dream is not worth risking a potential spot on the podium.<\/p>\n
Evenepoel told Het Laatste Nieuws<\/a> that he simply couldn\u2019t keep up. \u201cWhen Tadej attacked, I had to go into survival mode. It was not even the steepest part of the climb. It is special to see how he can still accelerate despite that brutal opening tempo from [Jay] Vine.\u201d This was the time trial world champion\u2019s last ride for Soudal Quick-Step, following a seven-year collaboration that had many highs and a few lows. It will be interesting to watch his progress with Red Bull\u2013BORA hansgrohe.<\/p>\n According to TNT Sports, this was the fiftieth (yes, 50th) solo-ride win of Poga\u010dar\u2019s career. More importantly, the Slovenian superstar became the second rider, with the great Fausto Coppi,<\/a> to win Il Lombardia five times. But he is the only rider to record the five wins in five years. He is also only the second rider to win three Monuments in one season; Eddy Merckx is the other. At 27 years of age, he has now won 10 of the sport\u2019s Monuments \u2013 the five toughest one-day races on the calendar. Merckx won 19, including three in 1969, 1971, 1972 and 1975.\u00a0At the rate he\u2019s going, Poga\u010dar will catch him in three years.<\/p>\n The smiling killer<\/p>\n Because he is not only the best rider in the peloton, but also one of the nicest, Poga\u010dar went out of his way to thank his UAE teammates. \u201cTo win five times in a row and every time I\u2019ve started, well, this race is really suited to me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the same time I had such a good team around me to enable me to pull it off and a big thanks goes to all my teammates.\u201d The retiring Rafal Majka and Jay Vine set a blistering pace on the Ganda ascent, reducing the peloton to a handful of riders and hurting the legs of those who remained.<\/p>\n Asked if this season was his best ever, with a fourth Tour de France win, the three Monument victories and the World and European road race championships, Poga\u010dar said, \u201cFor seven years in a row I\u2019ve said, \u2018This is my best season so far.\u2019 And once again I can say that this is my best season so far.\u201d<\/p>\n Majka, who rode his last race with Poga\u010dar after five years of invaluable support for him and the team, said of his team leader<\/a> at a pre-race ceremony honoring the Pole, \u201cHe can attack anywhere, win anywhere, and I\u2019ve never seen that in my life. I\u2019ve worked for Peter Sagan and Alberto Contador, but this guy is a machine. A killer.\u201d<\/p>\n Honorable mentions<\/p>\n As for the third-place Storer, he gave his Pro-level Tudor team its first Monument podium ever and, as he put it, gifted himself an unexpected highlight. \u201cI\u2019m super grateful for everything,\u201d he said. \u201cThe team will be super happy. I\u2019m sure my phone will be exploded now. Fabian [Cancellara, the team\u2019s owner and manager] went on the recon with us and was super motivated for this race, even though he wasn\u2019t racing. It\u2019s the highlight I wasn\u2019t expecting to come at the very end. I feel like there have been a lot of highlights this year. As I said before, I can be proud of my season, proud of today, and proud of my team.\u201d<\/p>\n One more honorable mention from this last major race of the year should go to 19-year-old Paul Seixas, who finished seventh and therefore, according to L\u2019Equipe<\/a>, became the youngest rider in a men\u2019s Monument top 10 since 1917, when Luigi Cuppi finished fourth in Milan-San Remo at the age of 18. \u201cI\u2019m a bit disappointed because I was in the right group,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cBut then I was done, and the riders in front were stronger. I fought until the end, I gave everything, and that\u2019s what I wanted to do today.\u201d<\/p>\n Results of the 2025 Il Lombardia<\/p>\n Tadej Poga\u010dar, UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG 5:45:53
\nRemco Evenepoel, Soudal Quick-Step +1:48
\nMichael Storer, Tudor +3:14
\nQuinn Simmons, Lidl-Trek +3:39
\nIsaac Del Toro, UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG \u00a0+4:16
\nTom Pidcock, Q36.5 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201c
\nPaul Seixas, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale \u201c
\nEgan Bernal, INEOSGrenadiers \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201c
\nJay Vine, UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG +4:18
\nCian Uijtdebroecks, Visma\u2013Lease a Bike +4:30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"D\u00e9j\u00e0 vu again When Poga\u010dar took off on the hardest climb of the day, the Passo di Ganda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-209659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}