Tadej Pogačar has already accomplished his pre-race recon of Saturday’s 2024 Il Lombardia, when the 26-year-old might turn into the primary rider since Fausto Coppi to safe 4 straight wins of the Race of the Falling Leaves.
Clad in his rainbow jersey, on Wednesday the 2024 Highway World Champion and his UAE teammates for the ultimate Monument of the 2024 season rode roughly 130 kilometres of the final a part of the course. Using in fortunately a lot drier climate than the torrential rain that led to the suspension of Tuesday’s Tre Valle Varesine, their recon included the three key climbs of the Madonna del Ghisallo, Colma di Sormano and the San Fermo della Battaglia within the end metropolis of Como.
However because the countdown continues to the ultimate Monument of the 2024 season, the query of what a doable fourth Pogačar victory in Il Lombardia would imply by way of biking’s all-time achievements is quickly gaining prominence, too.
No matter occurs on Saturday, Pogačar is already the primary rider within the elite males’s peloton to take the Triple Crown of Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and World Championships since Stephen Roche in 1987. Even with out the extra successes of Volta a Catalunya, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche, GP Montreal and Giro dell’Emilia, that achievement alone would absolutely classify Pogačar’s season as the best of any male rider within the twenty first century.
In line with the Biking statistics X (previously Twitter) account, by way of the straight win depend, a twenty fifth victory for 2024 would put Pogačar on a par with Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi’s 25 triumphs in 2005, the all-time file thus far for the twenty first century.
When it comes to the standard of these triumphs reasonably than pure amount, Pogačar’s profession is drawing increasingly more comparisons to Eddy Merckx. Merckx himself acknowledged after the World Championships that the Slovenian’s efficiency that day had been on a stage above even his personal rainbow jersey battles.
Ought to Pogačar win on Sunday, the UAE racer would equal Fausto Coppi’s 1949 file of two Monuments and two Grand Excursions (Milan-San Remo, Il Lombardia, Giro d’Italia, Tour de France) in a single season. However he would nonetheless be one wanting Merckx’s three Monuments-two Grand Tour achievement of 1972 (Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, Il Lombardia, Giro d’Italia and Tour de France).
Nevertheless, add within the World Championships victory and the Triple Crown and relating to a single season, Pogačar is already working in a category of his personal. Neither Merckx nor Roche gained any Monuments within the years they took the Giro-Tour-Worlds triple (1974 and 1987 respectively) and are available what might on Saturday, Pogačar already has one Monument in his 2024 palmares.
“He is in nice form,” UAE Crew Emirates CEO Mauro Gianetti advised La Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday, explaining that the UAE coaching recon had been introduced ahead a day due to Tuesday’s suspension of Tre Valle Varesine “and he is acquired a particular concentrate on Il Lombardia.”
As for equalling Coppi’s whole of 4 straight victories, Gianetti specified, although, that “The file? He isn’t interested by that. He is taking one purpose at a time.”
