Brandon McNulty chases a rare double at Il Lombardia and hopes to join an elite club of World Champions

McNulty, 28, went clear in Montréal and stayed away to the line. He made his move with 33 kilometres and never relinquished the lead. He became the first American to win the World Championship road race in 33 years. Michael Matthews (Australia) secured runner-up honors behind McNulty with Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) rounding out the podium in third.

The win set off a row with Tom Pidcock and Matthews over Isaac del Toro's role in the finale. The three riders will face off again on Saturday.

Velo points out that Lombardia is often the biggest race on the calendar for any freshly crowned world champion. Very few have taken advantage. Only eight male riders have won the world title and Il Lombardia in the same year:

For decades the order of the two races was different. For nearly 70 years, Italians called Lombardia "il Mondiale d'Autunno" in Italy ("the World Championship of Autumn"), as the real World Championship was held at the end of summer (tank you, Wikipedia!)

That changed in 1995, when the UCI moved the Worlds to October, one week before the Giro di Lombardia.

This century the double has been almost entirely an Italian and Slovenian affair. Back in 2024, PezCycling wrote that since the year 2000, only Paolo Bettini has won Lombardia as World champion, that was in 2006. That 2006 edition was the centenary race, and Rouleur recalled that Bettini, wearing the rainbow jersey he had just won in Salzburg, crossed the finish line in tears, pointing to the sky just days after his brother Sauro died in a car accident.

Pogačar then took the record further. In 2024 he won his fourth straight Lombardia in the rainbow jersey with a 48.4-kilometre solo over the Sormano. After he repeated the feat in 2025, he became the first rider ever to win Il Lombardia twice while wearing the rainbow bands.

The obstacle may be inside his own team. Del Toro is set to lead UAE Team Emirates-XRG in Pogačar's absence, with McNulty insisting that the rainbow bands on his back won't change his role at the Race of the Falling Leaves. Last week he said much the same:

His legs suggest he could still be a factor. He finished 10th at the Giro dell'Emilia on his first race in the rainbow jersey and second in the sprint at the Coppa Agostoni.

McNulty told Cycling Up To Date that the jersey has given him a lift: "Perhaps it will wear off and I will go back to suffering, but the last two days have been so special."

McNulty has not competed in the end-of-season Monument since 2021, when he played a supporting role as Pogačar claimed the first of his five consecutive victories.

UAE's plan to favour Del Toro on Saturday takes plenty of heat off McNulty, just as it did at the World Championships. If the race plays out the way it did in Montréal, Saturday could give the Worlds-Lombardia list its ninth name.