ANALYSIS: Which of Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel, or Remco Evenepoel can win all 5 monuments?
CyclingTuesday, 25 March 2025 at 20:00
Mathieu van der Poel’s breathtaking win at the 2025
Milano-Sanremo, perhaps the greatest edition in modern history, was more than
just another victory. It reignited one of cycling’s most intriguing debates: of
the three modern kings of one-day racing—Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel,
and Remco Evenepoel, who is most likely to win all five Monuments?
To date, only three riders in the history of the sport, Eddy
Merckx, Rik Van Looy, and Roger De Vlaeminck, have completed cycling’s ‘Grand
Slam’ of Monuments: Milano-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix,
Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and Il Lombardia. Now, with 17 of the last 20 Monuments,
World Championships or Olympic Games won by just Pogacar, Van der Poel, or
Evenepoel, the question is no longer if someone will attempt the feat, but who
will actually pull it off.
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The stats
Since the start of 2022, only six different riders have won
either a Monument, a World Championship, or an Olympic Games road race. Just
three, Matej Mohorič, Dylan van Baarle, and Jasper Philipsen, have interrupted
what has essentially become a cycling trinity.
Van der Poel, Pogacar, and Evenepoel have not only dominated
the biggest races, they’ve done so in entirely different ways: brute strength,
solo brilliance, tactical genius, and mind blowing endurance. And yet, as
dominant as each of them has been, the ‘complete set’ of Monument victories
remains elusive.
Here’s where they stand:
- Tadej Pogacar has won three of the five monuments: Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the Tour of Flanders, and Il Lombardia (four times), plus the 2024 World Championship. He only needs Milan–San Remo and Paris–Roubaix to complete the set.
- Mathieu van der Poel now has seven Monuments to his name, including two Milano-Sanremo, three Flanders, and two Paris-Roubaix, alongside the 2023 World Championship. He needs only Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Il Lombardia.
- Remco Evenepoel, perhaps the most ‘incomplete’ of the three, still lacks Flanders, Roubaix, Sanremo, and Lombardia, though he already owns two Liège victories, a World Championship (2022), and an Olympic gold medal (2024). The Olympic gold medal is the something neither of his two rivals have…yet.
So, who’s most likely to complete the set.
Tadej Pogacar
Let’s start with the obvious frontrunner. Tadej Pogacar is,
quite simply, one of the most complete riders cycling has ever seen. He has the
tactical intelligence, raw climbing ability, and endurance to win on any
terrain. His palmarès already reflects that. He is the only active rider to
have won a Monument on the cobbles (Flanders), in the Ardennes (Liège), and in
the mountains (Lombardia). He has even won from sprints and solo attacks.
Only Milano-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix remain. And neither
appears out of reach.
Tadej Pogacar defies what is possible as a cyclist
Milano-Sanremo, despite its reputation as a “sprinters'
classic,” has become increasingly open to puncheurs and attackers. Pogacar has
already come close here, most recently forcing a Cipressa selection that
smashed a decades-old climbing record. “We are seeing new tactics succeed,”
analysts noted after this year's edition. Had it not been for Van der Poel’s
perfect timing and Filippo Ganna’s inspired ride, Pogacar might already have
ticked this one off.
The flip side to this argument is that Saturday showed just
how hard Milano-Sanremo is for Pogacar, essentially because it’s not hard
enough. Try as he might, Pogacar could not distance Van der Poel on the poggio,
and he lost the race there once again.
Then there's Paris-Roubaix, the elephant in the room for
climbers. But is Pogacar really just a climber? In 2022, he rode the cobbles of
the Tour de France like a veteran. He has never tested himself fully at
Roubaix, but his engine, power output, and bike handling are elite-level. Even
Van der Poel believes Pogacar will win the race one day, but will that come
this spring or in the future?
That final caveat may be the key. If he targets Roubaix with
the same focus he gave Flanders, the outcome may well be the same. But, will
someone with GC ambitions in the Tour in July be prepared to risk it all on the
cobbles in Roubaix?
Verdict: Let’s get one thing straight, Pogacar is the
most likely to win all five Monuments, not only because he is closest, but
because nothing in cycling seems beyond him.
Mathieu van der Poel
There is no doubt that Van der Poel is one of the most
gifted and captivating riders of his generation and in fact of all time. His
seventh Monument at Milano-Sanremo 2025 confirms what many already believed:
he’s a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Add in seven cyclocross world titles and
mountain biking success, and he has one of the most diverse records in modern
cycling.
But the road to five Monuments is not just about greatness, it’s
about versatility.
Van der Poel still needs to win Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Il
Lombardia. Neither of these is beyond his reach, but they are undoubtedly the
toughest fit for his style. They’re typically dominated by climbers and
puncheurs, riders like Pogacar and Evenepoel, especially in recent years.
Was Mathieu van der Poel's second Milano-Sanremo win his greatest?
Even Van der Poel himself is realistic: “Winning Liège and
Lombardy seems impossible to me if Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel are at the
start,” he told La Dernière Heure. “It’s not just about thinking about winning
the five Monument Classics, but also about which riders you will face in the
race.”
Yet he does believe it’s possible: “It would certainly be
nice to be able to win the five Monuments, but I know I have already won a lot
and I can think about moving this objective forward.”
Van der Poel has the power, and his descending and technical
skills are second to none. But to win Liège or Lombardia, he may need the stars
to align, or hope Pogacar and Evenepoel skip those editions.
In reality, Van der Poel’s next quest for greatness may come
on a mountain bike later this year, as he aims to add another rainbow jersey to
his extraordinary collection.
Verdict: He has the class and ambition, but winning
the hilly Monuments would require perfect preparation, course tailoring, and
perhaps a weakened start list. Less likely than Pogacar, but not impossible.
Remco Evenepoel
On paper, Evenepoel has the most ground to make up. He’s
never won a cobbled Monument, and has yet to seriously contest Milano-Sanremo.
But if there’s one thing we've learned about Evenepoel, it’s to never rule him
out when the terrain suits his raw power and aggressive racing style
He already has back-to-back wins at Liège, the 2022 World
Championship, and 2024 Olympic gold, all won with dominant, long-range attacks.
Few can match him when he gets 30 seconds of daylight.
We are still waiting to see Remco Evenepoel in 2025
Let’s cast our minds back to the Olympic road race in Paris
last year. People quickly forget how incredible the Belgian was on that day, I
would go as far to say that even Pogacar would have struggled to snatch the
gold medal from him then.
But the problem is Paris-Roubaix and Flanders, races that
don’t allow for the kind of controlled, solo effort he thrives on. Evenepoel is
yet to have proven himself capable of winning on the cobbles as Pogacar and Van
der Poel can, and does he lack some of the raw power of someone like Mathieu
van der Poel and Wout van Aert?
He also lacks a finishing kick in group scenarios when
compared to some of the bigger riders, which makes races like Sanremo difficult
unless he arrives solo, which, as Van der Poel has proven, is no easy task.
Still, Evenepoel is only 25. His tactical awareness improved
massively in 2024, and he is clearly aware of his place in cycling history.
He’s a student of the sport and may one day shape his entire season around
attempting to complete the set.
Verdict: A long shot for all five, but not out of the
question. If anyone can rewrite their own limits, it’s Remco.
Three great riders, one historic goal
The ambition to win all five Monuments once seemed like a
relic of cycling’s golden age. But thanks to Van der Poel, Pogacar, and
Evenepoel, it’s now a living question.
It almost seems wrong to not have truly mentioned Wout van
Aert so far, but for all his incredible ability he still has just one monument
win to his name. That’s a shame, as he may have the best all-round profile to
complete the set, judging by his climbing ability we have seen in the Tour.
Pogacar is the most complete and the closest to achieving
it. If he targets Roubaix, he can win it. Sanremo will continue to be
unpredictable, but he’s been on the cusp multiple times.
Van der Poel’s versatility, brilliance, and tactical
instinct make him a contender in almost any race, but climbing-focused classics
remain a challenge.
Evenepoel, for now, remains the outside, but perhaps the one
with the most upside if he evolves his style.
Who will be the first to join cycling immortality as the
next winner of all five Monuments?
Right now, the smart money is on Pogacar.
But as we’ve seen time and time again with this trio, expect
the unexpected.
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- Crash or not to get stuck on the front in the lead up to the line and then try to blow Pocagar and Skjelmose off from the front, in the sprint was a big mistake. He went far too soon and ran out of legs. A lot of sprints are won from the front, but a lot more are lost by doing that. He must have thought he had the legs but it backfired on him.Cyclingsbestfan21-04-2025
- Exactly this. A day or so before the race an analyst (I forget who) strongly advised that Pogacar should take a longer break after Roubais, and skip Amstel, or suffer the consequences. Turns out they were right.Hill3321-04-2025
- A rather picky argument. MVDP has been busy at top level since December, kind of normal he takes a break, especially to be back in the height of summer to work for another. What’s with challenging Tadej in the hills, does Tadej challenge him in cyclocross, or mtb??? Each to his own. Every year when riders start racing again we’re hesitant to expect much due to lack of racing environment experience and need to build up yet for Remco now he is expected (including by Tadej) to be at his top right from the start? Tadej, personally added to his program when many would (as usual advise him against), he has conflicting interests, wants to win things important to him but doesn’t focus on achieving that and imo, he’s kind of fallen into a trap by having underestimated how strong some others really are. He’s phenomenal but he can’t beat everyone at everything so like everyone else, at some point he will have to learn to pick more specifically because winning IS important to him. As everyone admits nobody would have expected Skjelmose to win in advance, nobody even entertained the thought Tadej might have had his dose and that someone like Skjelmose could pressure him (and if he’d ridden smarter he might still have won in a sprint). I have no problem giving the guy a break and am not critical of the condition he’s shown but I won’t give those a break who hype him up interminably and then only discover they need to look at reasons for underperformance when they are constantly reminded by others in advance that those should always be considered before expecting results. I don’t recall any of his fans ever accepting the argument that maybe at some point he’ll overdo it, the discussion is regular, the way he rode the Giro was not conducive to achieving the double and in the end he succeeded partly because JV wasn’t up to scratch at that moment but maybe Tadej had already reckoned with that, who knows?). The fact is, he was disappointed but had only himself to blame, I mean c’mon, that wind didn’t come out of nowhere. I’m no hater, just don’t find him more appreciable than many others who make just as much effort and believe me, Tadej’s main motivation is not to entertain you, he’s no Sagan, he just likes racing, the fact that entertains people is unimportant to him other than that it pays a good salary, or was downing his drink on the podium (which the other two obviously considered a bit uncomfortably) an effort to entertain, if so, I fear it was probably entertaining, maybe even encouraging the kind of spectators that have begun to become media worthy.Mistermaumau21-04-2025
- Well.. sorry, I'm not sorry.. I'd rather listen to the world champion's explanation for his own show of weakness, than accept the post-mortem views of an amateur armchair pundit.. Give the guy a break.. Skjelmose's last race was Paris-Nice, where he abandoned after a crash.. Remco is just on his 2nd race of the season, fresh from having won the previous week's De Bravantse-Pijl race. Tadej battled MVDP in MSR, Flanders, P-R finishing 2nd, 1st, 2nd.. MVDP has taken an early vacation, not wishing to contest hilly races against TP in the heat of summer. If Remco and Mattias were not in this race, Tadej would have won again, to the eternal consternation of haters. Even world champions have an off-day, especially after the bone-jarring efforts of the cobbles season. Let's just appreciate these athlete's efforts to entertain us.. and hope that none of them get in harm's way.FredMan21-04-2025
- I think one has to look at their actions across the finish line. Tadej gave Skjelmose a pat, whereas Remco was in anguish, understandably having pulled Skjelmose for most of the time. I don't think Tadej changes much. He can make some comments which are a bit off especially during TdF, but nothing as bad as Remco.
KerisVroom21-04-2025 - so pog has been busy. maximum efforts at MSR, de RONDE, ROUBAIX, now AMSTEL… that’s a lot. if he’s wearing down a bit then i think remco is very likely on the opposite trajectory. LIÉGE could be interesting.OCexile21-04-2025
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- Womens racing strategy is so much different than mens! The top riders teams should have been controlling the breakaways time gap to keep it small but they all look at each other and call each others bluff!frieders321-04-2025
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- Why does anyone ride for Premier Tech? Is it because they're: a) stupid b) desperate c) a cnut?Matt21-04-2025