26-year-old Tadei Pogachar has already completed his pre-tuning for Saturday's 2024 Il Lombardia, where he could become the first rider since Fausto Coppi to win the “Race of the Fallen Leaves” four times in a row. On Wednesday, the 2024 road world champion, dressed in the rainbow jersey, rode the final 130 km of the course with his UAE teammates who will compete in the final monument of the 2024 season. In weather that was thankfully much drier than the torrential downpour that interrupted Tuesday's Tre Valle Varesine, their reconnaissance included three key climbs: the Madonna del Ghisallo, Colma di Solmano, and the finishing city of Como, San Fermo della Battaglia They included.

But as the countdown to the final monument of the 2024 season continues, the question of what a potential fourth Pogachar victory at Il Lombardia would mean in terms of all-time greatness in cycling is also rapidly drawing attention.

Whatever happens on Saturday, Pogachar is the first male elite peloton rider since Stéphane Roche in 1987 to win the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, and World Championships triple crown. Even without his successes at the Catalunya Pass, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche, Montreal GP, and Giro delle Miglia, Pogachar's season has arguably been the greatest of any male athlete of the 21st century.

According to his Cycling statistics X (formerly Twitter) account, in terms of straight wins, a 25th win in 2024 would put Pogachar on par with Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi's record of 25 wins in 2005

Pogachar has won the first two races of the season.

Pogachar's career is increasingly being compared to Eddy Merckx's in terms of quality rather than pure number of wins. Merckx himself said after the World Championships that the Slovenian's performance that day was on a level that surpassed even his own rainbow jersey contenders.

If Pogachar wins on Sunday, the UAE racer will tie Fausto Coppi's record of two monuments and two grand tours (Milan-San Remo, Il Lombardia, Giro d'Italia, Tour de France) in one season, set in 1949. However, he is still one short of the three monuments and two Grand Tours (Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, Il Lombardia, Giro d'Italia, and Tour de France) that Merckx achieved in 1972.

But add a World Championship win and the Triple Crown, and Pogachar is already exceptional in one season. Neither Merckx nor Roche won a monument in the year of the Giro-Tour-World triple crown (1974 and 1987, respectively).

“He is in very good shape,” UAE Team Emirates CEO Mauro Gianetti told La Gazzetta dello Sport on Thursday. As for matching Koppi's record of four straight wins, Gianetti is not thinking about “records. He is going for one goal at a time.”