13 Monuments: How Far Is Pogačar from Merckx's 19, and How Much Time Does He Need?

In the world of cycling, five one-day races are known as the “Monuments”: Milan–Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and Il Lombardia. They are the highest tier of one-day racing—winning just one is enough to put a rider’s name on the first line of their résumé for life.

And Tadej Pogačar currently has 13 of them.

That number is the second-most in cycling history, trailing only the 19 of Belgian legend Eddy Merckx.

Pogačar’s 13 Monuments at a Glance

Three things can be read directly from the table:

1. Extreme concentration in time—all 13 came within just six years, from 2021 to 2026.
2. Lombardia is his home turf—five straight wins; the autumn hills of Italy have practically become his private estate.
3. Paris–Roubaix is the only blank—it is also the only piece missing from his quest for a “full sweep of all five Monuments.”

Spring 2026: Three Monuments in Three Months

If you want a period that best illustrates Pogačar’s dominance in one-day racing, the 2026 Spring Classics season is the perfect sample.

Milan–Sanremo (3/21): The First One, Years in the Making

“The first Classic of spring” had always been a puzzle for Pogačar—the race route is flat, with the decisive moments concentrated on the final two climbs of the Cipressa and the Poggio, terrain inherently unfriendly to pure climbers.

The 2026 edition was even more of a rollercoaster. With 32.5 km remaining, before the Cipressa, he crashed (Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert went down at the same time), and relied on teammates Florian Vermeersch and Felix Großschartner to shepherd him back to the peloton. After that, Brandon McNulty and Isaac Del Toro took over the pace-setting, and Pogačar attacked with 24.2 km to go, 2.5 km before the Cipressa summit, taking only van der Poel and Tom Pidcock with him. He dropped van der Poel on the Poggio, while Pidcock clung on desperately, and finally launched his sprint 200 meters from the line on Via Roma, winning by half a wheel.

His first Sanremo, and his 11th Monument, tying the record of Roger De Vlaeminck at the time.

Tour of Flanders (4/5): A Third Crown

The team began applying pressure on the Molenberg (with over 100 km remaining). With 55 km to go, on the second ascent of the Oude Kwaremont, Pogačar attacked, and only van der Poel and Remco Evenepoel could follow; he dropped Evenepoel on the Paterberg; on the final Oude Kwaremont ascent he dropped van der Poel—at the summit he led by just 6 seconds, before gradually extending his lead and riding solo to the finish.

This was his 3rd Flanders win, making him just the 8th rider in history to win the race three times.

Liège–Bastogne–Liège: A Fourth Crown

A crash early in the race split the peloton, and a large group of 52 riders (including Evenepoel) formed at the front, leading by as much as three and a half minutes before being caught with 95 km remaining. Pogačar attacked on the classic Côte de La Redoute, and only the young rising star Paul Seixas could follow; it wasn’t until the final climb of the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons that he shook off Seixas, ultimately winning by 45 seconds, with Evenepoel third at 1 minute 42 seconds behind.

13 vs. 19: Can He Catch Merckx?

The gap is 6. That number looks significant, but it needs to be put into a timeline.

Pogačar was born in September 1998, making him 27 in 2026. By the standards of a modern professional’s peak years, he theoretically still has a considerable stretch of top-level racing ahead of him. If he maintains the 2025–2026 pace of “3 Monuments per season”—in 2025 he won 3 Monuments in a single season, becoming only the 2nd rider in history to do so—then mathematically, reaching 19 is far from a fantasy.

But reality has three variables:

One: The Season Must Keep Spanning Both Spring and Autumn

The key to his rapid accumulation is that he takes from all three blocks: Spring Classics + Tour de France + Autumn Lombardia. This kind of season schedule is enormously taxing on the body and mind; if he ever decides to focus on a Grand Tour in a given year, the Monument accumulation rate will immediately drop. He is already scheduled to race Lombardia on October 10, 2026, aiming for a 6th title.

Two: The Rivals Aren’t Standing Still

Van der Poel currently has 8 Monuments, the second-most among active riders, with the two of them far ahead of everyone else. In the spring of 2025, the pair swept all 4 Monuments between them. Former Tour de France champion Óscar Pereiro has said their rivalry is the best since the 1990s. Furthermore, van Aert took his first cobbled Monument at Paris–Roubaix in 2026, while Evenepoel and Seixas continue to evolve.

Three: The Cobbles Remain an Uncrossed Threshold

Paris–Roubaix is the column that will never appear among his 13. He finished runner-up two years in a row in 2025 and 2026—losing to van der Poel in 2025, and to van Aert in the final sprint at the Roubaix velodrome in 2026. As long as that slot remains at zero, the “full sweep of all five Monuments” will always be one step short.

Viewing Advice for Taiwanese Cycling Fans

The logic of watching a Monument is completely different from a Grand Tour: Grand Tours are about accumulation; Monuments are about a single day’s decisiveness. Pogačar attacking with 24.2 km to go at Sanremo, striking with 55 km remaining at Flanders, and settling everything in one move on La Redoute at Liège—these judgments of “when to pull the trigger” are what truly make the Monuments great to watch.

If you usually ride Fengguizui or the Beiyi Highway, you can actually relate to this sense of rhythm: when to follow, when to go on your own—it’s often not a matter of fitness but of judgment. The only difference is that when Pogačar gets it wrong, the cost is a Monument.

Related Reading

• A Spring of 13 vs. 8: Pogačar and van der Poel, the Generational Battle for King of the One-Day Races
• The GOAT Debate: Pogačar vs. Merckx and Hinault, and Why Cross-Generational Comparisons Are Destined to Have No Answer
• Paris–Roubaix: The Final Piece of Pogačar’s Quest to Sweep All Five Monuments
• Vuelta a España: Why Has Pogačar Yet to Fill the Gap in His Grand Tour Sweep?