Three riders have won all five monuments; will Pogacar join them after Paris-Roubaix?

Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and the Giro di Lombardia. Tadej Pogacar has already won four of the five cycling Monuments and is one of the main contenders in Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. If the Slovenian ticks off the Hell of the North as well, he will join ranks with Rik Van Looy, Eddy Merckx, and Roger De Vlaeminck. They all won each of the five Monuments at least once.

The first to have all five Monuments on his palmarès was Rik Van Looy. The Emperor of Herentals won Milan-San Remo in 1958 and added the Tour of Flanders and Giro di Lombardia the following year. Then in 1961 he completed the set by winning Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. After that spring season, he had won all five Monuments once; later, he would add another win at the Tour of Flanders and even two more in Paris-Roubaix.

Of course, Eddy Merckx is also in this list. The first Monument he won was Milan-San Remo in 1966. In the subsequent years, he quickly followed with his first Paris-Roubaix (1968), his first Tour of Flanders (1969), and his first Liège-Bastogne-Liège (1969). He had to wait a bit longer for the Giro di Lombardia. After podium finishes in 1966 (second) and 1968 (third), he finally won it in 1971. The following year, he would win the Race of the Falling Leaves again.

Roger De Vlaeminck completed the quintet in 1977. For him, the last missing piece was the Tour of Flanders, where a fourth place had been his best result up to that point. Seven years earlier, he had already won his first Monument at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Pogacar
For Tadej Pogacar, Liège-Bastogne-Liège was also the first Monument he won. This was in 2021, when he won the sprint from a small group ahead of Julian Alaphilippe and David Gaudu. That same year, he followed with his first victory in the Giro di Lombardia. In 2022, no new Monument was added to his palmarès, but in 2023 he won the Tour of Flanders.

After that, Pogi took some time to conquer Milan-San Remo, which he finally achieved this spring after several podiums. Now only Paris-Roubaix remains, where he debuted last year with a second-place finish.