Double blow for Tadej Pogacar.
The Slovenian champion won, on Saturday October 8 in Como, the 116th edition of the Tour of Lombardy, winning for the second consecutive year the last great classic of the cycling season.
The double winner of the Tour de France (2020 and 2021) won in the sprint ahead of the Spaniard Enric Mas, the only one who stood up to him, after 253 kilometers and more than six hours of racing under a bright sun between Bergamo and Como.
Another Spaniard, Mikel Landa, finished third.
The winner of the Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard never managed to weigh in on a race which tipped over an attack by Pogacar in the Civiglio twenty kilometers from the finish, after a lot of work from his UAE team.
Mas was the only one able to follow him but the Spaniard from Movistar, who is anything but a sprinter, had no chance in this exercise against the power of Pogacar.
He becomes the first rider in history to win the Fallen Leaf Classic twice in his first two outings.
"To repeat the success is fantastic. Everything happened as I had imagined. I wanted to attack in the Civiglio. Mas was at the same level in the climbs so we collaborated until the finish. I knew that I would have good legs today", reacted the Slovenian.
At 24, it is already the third "Monument", one of the five most prestigious one-day races on the cycling calendar, for "Pogi", who also won in Liège-Bastogne-Liège last year. last.
He ends the season with sixteen victories, more than any other rider and one more than the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, absent on Saturday because he was getting married.
The day was also marked by the farewell to the peloton of two giants, Alejandro Valverde and Vincenzo Nibali, who competed, at 42 and 37 respectively, in the last race of their careers.
If Nibali exploded from the foot of Civiglio, Valverde finished in a good sixth place.
With AFP
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