"He just stands out so much" - José de Cauwer argues classics with climbing have become too difficult for Pogacar's rivals

Il Lombardia is the final monument of the season and in all five occasions that Tadej Pogacar took to the start, over the past five editions, he has taken the victory. Besides making history, he has simply set a benchmark in climbing performances that no-one in the current peloton can match, and that is acknowledged by José de Cauwer.

The Sporza commentator, like all others, didn't have much to add after another edition of the classic of the fallen leaves where the UAE Team Emirates - XRG rider left all his rivals in the wake, attacking on the Passo di Ganda to put over a minute on the top-form Remco Evenepoel, whilst catching Quinn Simmons who was highly impressive from the day's breakaway.

De Cauwer believes the World Champion is beatable, Milano-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix being good examples, but in races with climbing - of which there are more and more by the year - the level of the World Champion simply beecomes too much for the competition, including Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard.

“Tadej Pogacar is absolutely beatable. If you organize a 100-kilometer race with only 500 meters of climbing tomorrow, he can be beaten. But as soon as it gets hard, he just stands out so much," the Belgian pundit added.

De Cauwer argues on that possibility, with Mathieu van der Poel being the only rider to really beat the Slovenian in a race where he had his full focus on this year. “At Paris–Roubaix, you saw one of the most beautiful things we witnessed this year. That was the one time he finally had to lose out. Other than that, he was almost always the best".

"Just look at Vingegaard. I get the sense he’s already thrown in the towel a bit," de Cauwer argues. "At Visma, they seem to have realized they might need to start chasing different goals.”