Autumn has officially begun and the leaves are already falling in the hills between Bergamo and Lake Como but warm weather means this year’s Il Lombardia should be a sunny, aggressive and ever so spectacular final Monument.
The hilly Il Lombardia course, its history and its prestige bring together the best climbers and the best WorldTour riders for an a final showdown each October. Other races and a desperate chase for UCI points to avoid WorldTour relegation have stretched the 2022 season into next week’s Veneto races and even the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia, but Il Lombardia traditionally brings down the curtain on big-time European road racing.
This year’s Il Lombardia will offer many things, including a Tour de France revenge match between last year’s winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and this year’s Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma). It will also mark a further generational change and the end of an era as Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Qazaqstan) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) retire after long careers.
Remco Evenepoel opted to show off his new rainbow jersey and end his 2022 season at Binche-Chimay-Binche and so Julian Alaphilippe will fly the flag for QuickStep-AlphaVinyl in Italy. After passing the rainbow bands to his younger teammate, Alaphilippe will hope to end a crash and injury-strewn season on a high and perhaps with a show of pride that signals he is still top dog in the Belgian super team.
Whoever the winner, there will be moments of celebration on the shores of Lake Como on Saturday but also tears of an emotional farewell to the 2022 season and long careers.
Classic Il Lombardia route
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Il Lombardia has often covered different roads in the vast northern Lombardy region of Italy, visiting Varese, Como, Lecco,…
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