Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) crashed during the final goal of the season at Il Lombardia, 217km from the finish at Bergamo, but was riding despite bloody knees and elbows.

The Belgian champion was down in an incident involving Sjoerd Bax (UAE Team Emirates) and Giovanni Aleotti (Bora-Hansgrohe), and his Soudal-QuickStep teammates were waiting for him.

The fall of Evenepoel was missed by television reports, but the video of the spectators from the side of the road showed that Evenepoel and Bax came together with the road turned right and Dat with the Belgian champions

Areotti and Evenepoel came together with the legendary Madonna del Gisaro (8.8 km à 3.9%). At the time of writing just before the first climb of the day in the Peloton sat just over a third in the doctor's car and returned to the Peloton, but the Bucks were unfortunately forced to give up the race.

Evenepoel started as one of the headline favorites at Il Lombardia today, looking for redemption from a horrific crash in this race that fractured his pelvis in 2020 and was about to book another great season with a third memorial victory.

Even though the sports discourse is dominated by rumors of a Jumbo Visma, Soudal-QuickStep merger, yesterday's reports from the Belgian media show that the fusion is on the table

The Belgian superstar said this morning that his focus is clear on Il Lombardy and that rumors suggest he will be back in 2023. He claimed that he did not distract from chasing this ultimate goal of the year.

"No, personally the way I dealt with it was to not care too much about it, to see what was going to happen, and to focus on this goal," Evenepoel said before the start of Il Lombardia. "We can see how it actually develops in the next few days, but I think it didn't prevent us from preparing for this race.

"It's the end of the season so I don't know how my legs will be, whether I'm tired or not That's why I decided not to race after the Vuelta.

"I came out of the Vuelta at a very good level, better than I started, so I hope I can keep this shape until this race. I wish you some great legs today."

Evenepoel was enjoying a relaxing morning before his crash, smiling with teammates and sharing words with Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) along with teammate Julien Alafillippe as Pinot rode the final, emotional race after a great career.

Evenepoel was talking about what he was not the only option for Lombardy along with Ilan Van Wilder, Andrea Bagioli and Alaphilippe.

"Of course, I have seen all the races of my teammates and if I'm not wrong, they won 4 out of 2 races, so 50% is very good," Evenepoel said, "I think I have a lot of cards, not just myself, and that's the strength of the team today." I think you can go for more than one person."

The other big favorites of the day were Tadej Pogağar (UAE team Emirates) and Primoş Rogliş (Jumbo-Visma), each of which was a team that Evenepoel was wary of before leaving from Como this morning.

"First of all, I think we should wait for what form and legs will be towards the end of the race and what the UAE and Jumbo tactics will be," Evenepoel told Cycling Pro Net "But for us, it can be an open race and we have multiple cameras to play." We have a team that is in very good shape because we have a very good team."