Tadej Pogačar already held a toweringly high position as the number 1 favourite for victory in Il Lombardia this weekend, but he added a couple more storeys to that status all the same on Tuesday, with yet another solo victory to clinch his final warm-up race, the Tre Valli Varesine.
“The legs should be good for Saturday,” the UAE Team Emirates-XRG racer told CyclingProNet and other reporters after his latest triumph, taken when he powered away 22 kilometres from the finish line in Varese, Italy.
Pogačar already won Tre Valli back in 2022, as well as taking third in 2021, fifth in 2023 and being present in the race in 2024 when it was cancelled due to poor weather and on each of his four previous participations, he has gone on to win Il Lombardia.
“Obviously it’s been a long season now but Lombardia is this big goal and I have extra motivation to do it super-well,” Pogačar said as he eyed a fifth straight win in the final Monument of the season – one that would put him level for Race of the Falling Leaves triumphs, too, with the record held by Italian legend Fausto Coppi for more than seventy years.
There was even a backup plan for Pogačar at Tre Valli, the UAE leader revealed, with teammate Isaac del Toro present in the chase group ready and waiting to counter-attack if the near-unthinkable had happened and Pogačar been caught before the line.
Instead, Pogačar was able to continue with no sign of the opposition being able to stage a comeback, claiming his victory over Albert Withen Philipsen (Lidl-Trek) and Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) by 45 seconds. Del Toro, having maintained his role as foil to Pogačar all the way to the line, was able to end in eighth, rounding off a perfect day for UAE:
“The plan was to wait for the final lap to ride at a good pace and then Tudor decided to go super-deep, super-early,” Pogačar explained after making a flying downhill attack – possibly the most unusual feature of one of his trademark solo…
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