Tadej Pogačar won Milan–San Remo for the first time on 21 March 2026, adding a fourth different Monument to his collection. The 298 km race from Pavia to the Ligurian coast was settled in a two-up sprint on the Via Roma.
A crash near Imperia, then a fightback to the Via Roma
About 32 km from the line, near Imperia, Pogačar went down before the Cipressa climb. His teammates paced him back through the bunch. He rejoined the front just as the climb began.
On the Cipressa he attacked, forcing a split with only Tom Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel able to follow. On the lower slopes of the Poggio he accelerated again and dropped Van der Poel, the two-time winner. Only Pidcock stayed with him.
The pair held clear over the descent and onto the flat run-in, with Wout van Aert closing hard behind. Pidcock forced Pogačar to lead out the sprint from 200 metres. Pogačar held on to win by half a wheel, with Van Aert third, four seconds back.
An eleventh Monument, level with De Vlaeminck
The victory was Pogačar's 11th Monument win, tying Roger De Vlaeminck for the second-most in history. He had finished top five at this race four years running, and had failed in each of the previous three editions to drop Van der Poel on the Poggio. His winning time was 6:35:49.
"When I crashed, I thought it was all over," Pogačar told reporters afterwards. "Luckily I was quickly back on the bike and there was not too much damage to me or the bike."
The one Monument that had escaped him is now his, taken on a day he nearly lost on the road to Imperia.
