Not over yet - Il Lombardia, WorldTour survival and long goodbyes all part of intense season finale

BERGAMO ITALY OCTOBER 09 Tadej Pogacar of Slovenia and UAE Team Emirates celebrates at finish line as race winner ahead of Fausto Masnada of Italy and Team Deceuninck QuickStep during the 115th Il Lombardia 2021 a 239km race from Como to Bergamo ilombardia UCIWT on October 09 2021 in Bergamo Italy Photo by Tim de WaeleGetty Images

(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

The rainbow jersey has been handed out and Autumn is starting to fall softly over Europe, yet there is still distance left to run in the 2022 season. Il Lombardia, with its potential for a reprise of Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard’s Tour de France duel, is the biggest landmark left on the horizon, but there are plenty of other attractions to draw the eye in the final three weeks of the elite men’s calendar.

The post-World Championships action already got underway on Tuesday with the opening stage of the CRO Race, where Bahrain Victorious’ Jonathan Milan claimed victory. Much of the attention in Croatia this week will, of course, centre on Vingegaard, back in competition for the first time since he won the Tour in July and building towards that rendezvous at Il Lombardia. Others begin a similar process this week at Thursday's Coppa Agostoni, which kicks off an intense schedule of one-day racing in Italy.

Lutsenko’s teammate Vincenzo Nibali is also slated to begin his farewell tour here, while Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) also feature on the provisional start list. Israel Start-Up Nation and Lotto Soudal, whose hopes of retaining WorldTour status are flickering have, unsurprisingly, opted for strong line-ups here, with Jakob Fuglsang, Michael Woods and Tim Wellens among the riders on show.

One the most underrated events on the calendar, the Giro dell’Emilia provides the kind of entertainment that Flèche Wallonne wishes it could. The event is invariably decided on the evocative haul to the finish up the porticoed climb of San Luca, but that steep final kilometre rarely dissuades aggressive racing on the four laps of the finishing circuit around Bologna, which usually offers up a slugging match of sparkling quality.

Starting and finishing in Marche-en-Famenne in the Belgian province of Luxembourg, the Famenne Ardenne Classic was established in 2017 but has had a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The race makes a return this weekend, with 2019 winner Dimitry Claeys wearing the number 1 dossard, though his Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert teammate Biniam Girmay could well be the name to watch. Others in action include Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Soudal), Greg Van Avermaet (AG2R Citroën) and Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix).

The second leg of the Trittico Lombardo sets out from Legnano and then takes in seven laps of the Valle Olona circuit, which includes the climb of Morazzone, before a 30km run-in to the finish back in Legnano. A year ago, Remco Evenepoel’s dominance was such that he caught and passed the peloton on the local lap in Legnano. The absence of that finishing circuit in 2022 suggests an attempt at Remco-proofing the route, though the new World Champion will not be in action in Italy this Autumn.

On the same day as the Coppa Bernocchi, there’s a chance for the fast men to notch up a late-season win in Germany. The Münsterland Giro traditionally falls to a sprinter, with Mark Cavendish (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) claiming the spoils a year ago. The rapid finishers pencilled in for this season’s edition include 2017 winner Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates), Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal), Dylan Groenewegen (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Fabio Jakobsen (QuickStep-AlpaVinyl). The prospects of a break staying clear in Münster are slim.

The third act of the Trittico Lombardo is the toughest and it also looks likely to attract the deepest field, with Pogačar among the anticipated starters as he builds towards Il Lombardia. The 196km race starts in Busto Arsizio and takes in some 3462m of total climbing before the finish in Varese. The route is roughly similar to last year’s race, where Alessandro De Marchi took the honours, with eight laps over a circuit that includes the 2km climb of Montello followed by two longer laps that take in both Montello and the tougher ascent of Morosolo.

During the pandemic-interrupted 2020 season, George Bennett won a gripping edition of Gran Piemonte that was fought out on a picturesque, hilly course through the wine and truffle country of the Langhe, but RCS Sport sadly hasn’t yet seen fit to replicate that formula. We can only hope. This year’s race beats a largely flat path from Omegna to Beinasco, with the climb of Il Pilonetto – 60km from home – the only real obstacle. Like last year’s edition, won by Matthew Walls (Bora-Hansgrohe), this should prove an outing for fast finishers.

Paris-Bourges has undergone various iterations through a history that began in 1913, but over the past thirty years or so, it has generally been paired with Paris-Tours on the October calendar, serving as something of a prologue to the sprinters’ Classic. ASO may dominate race organisation in France, but Paris-Bourges remains an independent race, run proudly by Union Bourges Cher Cyclisme. 2021 winner Jordi Meeus (Bora-Hansgrohe) returns here in a field that is also set to include Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ), Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal), Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) and Elia Viviani (Ineos Grenadiers).

During the World Cup era, there used to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Tour of Lombardy, given that the men in contention for the vertical rainbow stripes had developed a penchant for racing for points rather than victory in the final Monument of the season. In truth, those considerations had already been a part of the tale for at least a generation, as men like Sean Kelly and Francesco Moser chased the Super Prestige Pernod classification, but since the advent of the WorldTour in 2005, the big names have been racing Il Lombardia only with an eye to winning the day’s prize.

Pogačar, who last year became the first reigning Tour winner to claim Il Lombardia since Bernard Hinault in 1979, returns to defend his title. Vingegaard, the man who denied him yellow in July, has also targeted Il Lombardia, while a deep field will also include Alaphilippe, Woods, Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and Simon Yates, as well as retirees Vincenzo Nibali and Alejandro Valverde. In a reverse of last year’s course, the race goes from Bergamo to Como, with the climbs of the Civiglio and San Fermo della Battaglia featuring in the finale. Nibali constructed his 2015 and 2017 wins on those very climbs, and he will look to leave an impression in his last dance.

One wonders if that was entirely necessary – the old course was not always a sprinters’ benefit, after all. Jacky Durand memorably held off the fast men on the Avenue de Grammont in 1998, as did Richard Virenque (2001) and Frédéric Guesdon (2006). And, of course, Philippe Gilbert claimed back-to-back victories in 2008 and 2009. Perhaps appropriately, the Belgian has chosen Paris-Tours for the final race of his career.

The presence of Evenepoel and Gilbert means that Binche-Chimay-Binche will feel like the end of the Belgian season, but there is one more race in Flanders before attention turns fully from road to cyclo-cross. The Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen was off the calendar altogether from 2013 to 2018 due to a lack of funding. It returned in 2019, with Dries De Bondt the winner, but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented it from taking place for the last two years. Sprinters including Mark Cavendish (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl), Caleb Ewan and Dylan Groenewegen are on the provisional start list, while the race will also be Iljo Keisse’s final outing as a professional.

The Giro del Veneto returned to the UCI calendar in 2021 after an eight-year absence as part of the Filippo Pozzato-organised slate of late-season races in the region. Twelve months ago, the race set out from Cittadella and finished on Padova’s sweeping Prato della Valle, where Xandro Meurisse took the win. This time out, the event starts in Padova and makes its way through the Colli Euganei towards a punchy finale across three laps of a 22km finishing circuit around Vicenza, which features the climb of Arcugnano. Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates) and Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck) are among the riders expected to figure, while the event also serves as 51-year-old Davide Rebellin’s last race in a career that has lasted three decades.

The novel Serenissima Gravel event – won by Alexey Lutsenko last year – returns on Friday, October 14, while the second edition of the Veneto Classic brings the curtain down on the Italian season. Pozzato has already outlined his desire to shift the race to a pre-Worlds date and elevate it to WorldTour status as his native region’s answer to Strade Bianche. The route he has designed is certainly worthy of the highest level.

This year’s race sets out from Treviso rather than Venice, but the key points of a punchy route remain in place, with the ascent of Muro di Ca’ del Poggio featuring ahead of a breathless finishing circuit over La Tisa and La Rosina. The grand finale comes on the bridge over the Brenta at Bassano del Grappa. Samuele Battistella won there a year ago and his Astana-Qazaqstan team is one of four WorldTour squads confirmed so far, along with Israel Start-Up Nation, UAE Team Emirates and Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert.

Late-season time trials aren’t what they used to be – despite murmurs that the two-up Trofeo Baracchi could return in 2023 – but the Chrono des Nations keeps the flame alive. The race began as the Chrono des Herbiers in 1982 and then merged with the sadly-defunct Grand Prix des Nations in 2006. Time trial races as stand-alone events lost much their intrigue with the introduction of the World Championships time trial in 1994, but Tobias Foss (Jumbo-Visma), the new rainbow jersey in discipline, will be the star attraction in Les Herbiers this year. His teammates Edoardo Affini and Jos van Emden are also set to ride, along with Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Soudal).

The Japan Cup began life in 1992 as a legacy of the World Championships at Utsunomiya two years previously, and the race has endured for three decades, though the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the last two editions. Strangely, given the UCI’s apparent commitment to growing the sport beyond its traditional, European heartland, the Japan Cup – despite its tradition and large, knowledgeable local fanbase – has never featured on the WorldTour. It had just one season as part of the old World Cup, too – in 1996, when now UAE Team Emirates manager Mauro Gianetti took the win.

Movistar, Cofidis and EF-EasyPost’s fears of the drop have receded somewhat in recent weeks, which might dilute the quality of their squads here. By the final week of the season, the battle for three-year licences could be all but resolved, and the focus might instead fall on the contest to be the best-ranked team outside the WorldTour. Lotto Soudal and Israel Start-Up Nation – both present in Malaysia – might be in Langkawi vying for an automatic invitation to next year’s biggest races.

October 8 promises to be a particularly busy day in Italian cycling. As well as Il Lombardia and the Gravel Worlds, Filippo Ganna will be making his tilt at the UCI Hour Record on the velodrome in Grenchen that evening. Meanwhile, as the current seasons hastens towards its end, thoughts already begin to turn to the new campaign. The 2023 Giro d’Italia route will be presented in Milan on Monday, October 17, while the Tour de France course will be unveiled in Paris on Thursday, October 27.

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Barry Ryan is Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.