07/10/2023

Tadej Pogacar wins Il Lombardia following daredevil descent attack - Bagioli and Roglic complete podium

A hattrick. Tadej Pogacar has won Il Lombardia for a third time in a row, winning the final monument of the season solo for the first time, following a downhill attack that no-one could match.

The long and final monument of the season was a rough day and it began exactly like that. Remco Evenepoel hit the deck immediately in the first kilometers. Victim of bad luck, this happened whilst the breakaway was formed, several groups went up the road and ultimately 16 riders had their presence felt at the head of the race.

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They were Niccolò Buratti, Nicolas Prodhomme, Samuele Battistella, Nicola Conci, Jacob Eriksson, Alex Tolio, Tobias Bayer, Paul Ourselin, Mattia Bais, Martin Marcellusi, Simon Geschke, Nils Brun, Asbjorn Hellemose, Ben Swift, Thomas de Gendt and Kamil Malecki. A strong group, but not one that ever enjoyed a large gap, as EF Education-EasyPost and Jumbo-Visma controlled the peloton.

With 82 kilometers to go Ben Healy and Oscar Onley attacked from the peloton and bridged across to several riders that were resisting the climbs in the breakaway. The duo connected with Prodhomme and Marcellusi who were on a very strong day. The Irishman took control of the pace in the group throughout most of the time.

With 64 kilometers to go another crash took down Richard Carapaz, Matteo Jorgenson and Mikel Landa among others - with the latter ending his ability to contest for the win there. However the Ecuadorian reconnected with the peloton as there were no attacks in the peloton, everyone conserved their legs for the final ascent to Passo di Ganda.

There the action kicked off. UAE Team Emirates entered the climb in front and Adam Yates attacked early on, trying to use numbers in their favour. As the likes of Evenepoel and Mas were dropped, the group was reduced to less than a dozen riders. With 35 kilometers to go a split in the group saw Pogacar and Roglic dropped, the defending champion then attacked and bridged across to the front group, with Roglic taking his time to manage to do the same.

Yates pushed the pace briefly and Pogacar attacked with 34 to go, joined by Aleksandr Vlasov. Roglic, Carlos Rodríguez, Simon Yates and Andrea Bagioli formed the chasing group just behind. The six riders united at the summit of the ascent.

Pogacar did not stop however, he attacked right away at the start of the descent. At first a seemingly innocent attack, but one that proved effective. It counted on the idea that collaboration would be bad behind, and he was not wrong. He got over 30 seconds over the descent, and with Adam Yates joining the chasing group, the chasers never actually got to work properly. This allowed the Slovenian to extend his gap - even though he signaled he could be experiencing cramps throughout his solo effort.

He comfortably kept his gap through the final ascent to Bergamo Alta and had all the time in he world to celebrate his victory in the city center. Behind Roglic and Carapaz were dropped in the climb. Andrea Bagioli sprinted to second whilst Primoz Roglic was third.