News

In a normal year, Il Lombardia would be the last of the 5 monuments to be contested, in October, and would close the traditional season in Europe. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, however, the season is anything but normal, and the classic of dead leaves has been advanced on the calendar, becoming the second monument of this atypical 2020.

What does remain the same is the route, which will offer us the climbing spectacle to which we are accustomed, on a route traced to last year, with 243 km and more than 4000 meters of accumulated positive hight. The mythical ascension to Madonna del Ghisallo (8.6 km at 6.2% of averadge slope), one of the biggest cycling temples, is crowned at 63 km from the finish line, followed by Muro di Sormano (1.9 km at 15, 8% and with ramps of up to 27%), to end with Civiglio (4.2 km at 9.8%) and San Fermo della Battaglia (2.7% at 7.2%) duo. Once this last point has been reached, there is only the rapid descent of 5 km to the finish line in the streets of Como.

With the vast majority of teams measuring their lineups for the Tour de France at the Critérium du Dauphiné, it seems that the competition for Il Lombardía is less imposing than previous editions. Yes there will be, however, the defending champion Bauke Mollema (1000), and the winner in 2018, Thibaut Pinot (1200). Ahead of them, Remco Evenepoel (400) is emerging as the main favorite, even this being the first monument he will dispute in his career. Evenepoel has won everything he has raced in 2020 and it seems that the young Belgian talent has no ceiling.

Two-time champion Vincenzo Nibali (1000), also starts as one of the main favorites, in a startlist where Maximillian Schachmann (1200), Jakob Fuglsang (1200), Tadej Pogačar (1000), Diego Ulissi (1000), Michael Woods (800), Sergio Higuita (800) or Rafal Majka (1000) also stand out. Cyclocross world champion Matthieu van der Poel (400) will also start, although it is unlikely that he will be able to succeed in such a tough test.