For the fourth year running, Tadej Pogacar has thundered to victory at Il Lombardia, this time by around three minutes from second placed Remco Evenepoel, writing yet another glorious chapter in his incredible 2024 season.
A big, more than 20-man strong group rode clear early on, including notable names such as Damiano Caruso, Matej Mohoric, Thymen Arensman, Einer Rubio, Daniel Martinez, Eddie Dunbar, Tiesj Benoot and Wilco Kelderman among others. Given the good cooperation on show in such a strong group, at 100km to go, the leaders had more than four and a half minutes on the main peloton.
As UAE Team Emirates sent Rafal Majka to work on the front of the peloton behind though, that time gap began to drop worryingly quickly as far as the break would be concerned. As such, with the Colma di Sormano looming, the break's advantage over the bunch had been cut to under two minutes at 65km to go.
As soon as the climb began, the lead was down to just 1:02 as Rudy Molard became the first rider to attack from the break, bringing Groupama - FDJ teammate Remy Rochas and Team Jayco AlUla's Eddie Dunbar clear with him. A counter-attack from Xandro Meurisse was the first move to get real separation though with the Belgian a lone leader into the last 50km. As UAE continued to pick their way through the break though, any hopes looked slim and with still 48km to go, Tadej Pogacar launched.
Once the Slovenian began to ride off into the distance, it seemed attentions immediately began to turn towards the battle for 2nd and 3rd as the chase was unable to cooperate properly. Leading that fight for 2nd and 3rd, Remco Evenepoel, Enric Mas and Lennert van Eetvelt started to ride away from the rest, without really putting any time into Pogacar in the process. On the descent from Sormano, Evenepoel dropped his two companions, but as the road flattened out, the Belgian was still more than a minute down on Pogacar.
Although 1st and 2nd looked decided heading into the final 20km with Pogacar 1:33 clear on Evenepoel, who in turn was a minute clear of his nearest rivals, the only excitement looked set for the battle for 3rd as Mas and Van Eetvelt began to be closed down by Pavel Sivakov. As the ticker turned to 10km, Pogacar's advantage had extended even further to 2:18 over Evenepoel and 4:13 over the Mas, Van Eetvelt, Sivakov trio.
With both Pogacar and Evenepoel thankfully avoiding any disasters, 1st and 2nd were all wrapped up. For 3rd though, things were really coming back together as the trio were caught by a much larger chase group before a Giulio Ciccone counter attack.
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