Defending Il Lombardia champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) has ramped up his training efforts ahead of his final goal of the season, a third successive victory at the Race of the Falling Leaves.
If Pogačar triumphs at Il Lombardia, he will join an elite duo of riders that have won the Monument three times in a row, Alfredo Binda and Fausto Coppi, with the latter even winning it four times in succession between 1946 and 1949.
The two-time Tour de France winner’s most recent activity on Strava reveals a six-hour, 190km ride with 3,813m of elevation gain at an average speed of 31.7km/h travelling into the popular climbing roads north of Monaco, where he resides.
The 24-year-old titled it no more than a ‘coffee ride’ in a similar fashion to his bio on X/Twitter where he describes himself, one of the best riders the sport has ever seen, as merely a ‘bike rider’.
Just the day prior, Pogačar also completed a 142km effort which included another assault on the Col de la Madone Strava KOM, shaving another second off the record that had been held by Richie Porte since 2016 until the Slovenian broke it in July.
Pogačar’s most recent race appearances were at the Giro della Toscana and Coppa Sabatini where he finished fourth and third respectively, with only the Giro dell'Emilia and Tre Valli Varesine left on his programme before the final monument of the season arrives on October 7.
Last season saw Pogačar finish runner-up at the Giro dell'Emilia before taking victory at Tre Valli Varesine and firing a final warning shot to those lining up in Bergamo alongside him at Il Lombardia in 2022.
The route for the 2023 race was recently unveiled with a similar parcours to the 2021 race on the menu for the 25 starting teams. Pogačar dominated the 2021 edition, with only Bergamo local, Fausto Masnada (Soudal-QuickStep), able to catch up with him on the final descent before being well beat in the two-up sprint into Bergamo.
Having won the Tour of Flanders earlier this season, Pogačar could become only the third rider to win the combination of Flanders and Lombardia in a single season after Rik Van Looy (1959) and Hennie Kuiper (1981).
Pogačar celebrates his 25th birthday today with an already decorated palmarès, but adding a third Il Lombardia will be a huge goal for 2023, given how he lost the Tour de France to Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Jisma) for a second consecutive year.
The Dane won’t be on the startline after just completing the Vuelta a España, but his teammate Primož Roglič will and, alongside former World Champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), should prove a huge obstacle for Pogačar if he is to capture Il Lombardia again for a third time.
