DISCUSSION Il Lombardia | Has the 2025 season of Tadej Pogacar been better than 2024?

The 2025 cycling season is coming to an end, and today it was turn for the last monument of the year. Il Lombardia, also known as the Classic of the falling (dead) leaves, is the most mountainous mounument, suiting perfectly someone like Tadej Pogacar, as could be seen today.

A strong breakaway was established a few kilometers after the start of the race, formed by Quinn Simmons, Michael Matthews, Filippo Ganna, Victor Langellotti, Lucas Hamilton, Gal Glivar, Mattia Bais, Pello Bilbao, Louis Vervaeke, Bart Lemmen, Walter Calzoni, Bjorn Koerdt, Thibault Guernalec and Asbjorn Hellemose.

The group in front quickly built a 3-minute lead, but it never went beyond that. UAE took responsibility to control the race early, and they even received help from Bora for no apparent reason. The first 200km passed by with little to things to note. A few riders such as Tom Pidcock or Jai Hindley suffered minor crashes, luckily with no serious consequences.

In the front group, Quinn Simmons attacked in Passo della Crocetta, going solo and gaining some distance on a chasing group formed by Matthews, Ganna, Vervaeke and Bilbao, which kept losing more and more time until it was absorbed by peloton.

Meanwhile, no other team tried to push the pace in the bunch, leaving UAE the sole responsibility to chase. UAE’s tactics were simple but effective. First Sivakov, then Majka and finally Vine set an increasingly hard pace at Passo di Ganda (9.3km à 7.1%) that culminated with the usual Pogacar attack.

It was 36km from the finish line this time, but what did not change is that absolutely nobody had the legs to follow him. The Slovenian flew away and conquered his fifth consecutive Lombardia with ease, tying Fausto Coppi.

Behind him, the battle for the podium had more excitement. A small group with Remco Evenepoel Isaac del Toro, Michael Storer and Paul Seixas was immediately formed, while a second chasing group with the likes of Primoz Roglic and Tom Pidcock stayed behind.

Seixas was the first man to lose contact, with del Toro struggling a lot in the penultimate ascent and eventually getting dropped soon before reaching the descent. Storer was the strongest rival Evenepoel faced, and he only managed to drop him during a flat section. Evenepoel ended up finishing second once again, while Storer got a well-deserved bronze.

Once the race finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

Pretty simple and dull race. There was 1 scenario that was expected and it happened, textbook tactic that UAE and everyone knew that would work if nothing unusual happened. UAE controlled the race with ease, Red Bul - BORA instead of attacking and trying their luck with one of their many climbers to take a top result, worked to control the breakaway despite having no favourite for the race...

UAE did what they wanted, and with a regular leadout on the Passo di Ganda launched Pogacar to victory ahead of Evenepoel just as we've see, literally in the exact same way, over the past few two weeks. So many congratulations but racing-wise this is simply not interesting and makes for incredibly dull and predictable racing to a degree I don't recall seeing before.

What superlatives are left to describe the rider Tadej Pogacar? Saying the man comes from Slovenia isn’t quite true. He’s created a new country in cycling — its name is SOLO-venia. The capital of that country is named Pogacar and unfortunately it has only one inhabitant... Pogacar.

So many times this season the man attacked uphill somewhere along the way, and just as many times he finished the race as the winner. What people sometimes forget is how wisely he rides. That’s easier said than done, even with such a strong team around him. He never seems to have problems with his bike, his gear, the race conditions, the dangerous roads, obstacles, or anything else.

The man simply almost never crashes during a season. The rest, led by Remco Evenepoel, can only watch and then hear him say in the interview, “Every year I say this was my best season ever — and this year I can say it again.” Everyone can think deeply about that later, but the odds are very high that in October 2026, Tadej Pogacar from Solovenia will be able to say exactly the same again after Il Lombardia 2026.

Tadej Pogacar closes the 2025 season by improving on his 2024 performance, which was thought to be impossible to beat. This only goes to show that we are witnessing the rider who will probably end his career as the best cyclist in history. With this victory in Il Lombardia (his fifth in a row, the first ever to do so), the UAE star enters the Top 3 cyclists with the most monuments to his name, with 10.

Only Eddy Merckx and Roger De Vlaeminck have surpassed him. Why do I think he will be the best ever? Because he is only 27 years old and I am absolutely certain that we have not yet seen the best of him. He said it himself after winning the race: every year he says it has been the best season of his life.

And I think it will continue to be that way if there are no setbacks beyond his control. Pogacar is on track to break all records, and no matter how much history repeats itself, he never ceases to amaze us every day. That's the most magical thing of all. Boring? Not at all. He's the greatest we've ever seen, and we're lucky to say that we've been able to witness it live and in person.

Zero surprises today, everything went as expected in advance, at least regarding the winner. The only surprise was that Pogacar attacked with “only” 36km to go. After the extremely long range attacks he has recently launched in one day races, going solo for less than 40km feels like nothing.

UAE controlled the race the way they wanted, nothing new (when Pogacar is riding). Bora took the controversial decision to help UAE control the break in the first half of the stage, something I don’t really get. Knowing how superior Pogacar has proven to be, there is little to no reason to help his domestiques.

Did Bora or Roglic think it would increase their chances of fighting for the podium? I don’t know what their plan was but I can safely say that it didn’t work out at all, as their best rider (Roglic) was 22nd…

I am not sure if the 2025 season of Pogacar has been better than last year. We thought it was almost impossible to surpass it: 25 victories, 2 Grand Tours (Giro and Tour) with 6 stage wins in each, two monuments, World Championships…

While in 2025, he “only” won one Grand Tour, but he got three monuments instead of two and podiumed Paris-Roubaix and Milano San Remo as well, besides also adding Worlds and Europeans, totaling 20 victories.

In both years he showed the same dominance, but I think I still consider 2024 to have the edge, because two Grand Tours with 6 stage wins in each is just hard to improve, even if he just got the two "easiest" monuments considering he is technically a climber.

And I still believe he has decent room for improvement, I agree with Jorge that we have not yet seen the best of him. 2026 should be even better, he is on track to become the best cyclist ever, and it might not take him long to achieve that.