Saturday 10 October, 10:45 CET. Bergamo to Como. 239 km of racing. The 120th edition of 'The Race of the Falling Leaves' is the first without Tadej Pogacar since 2020. Here is the complete global broadcast map.
Il Lombardia 2026 is Saturday, 10 October.
Official start time is 10:45 CET. Expected finish between 16:40 and 17:20 CET, with the final climbs beginning around 15:00.
That is 09:45 BST, 04:45 ET, 01:45 PT, 19:45 AEDT, 17:45 JST, 14:45 Bangladesh Standard Time at the start.
This is the full broadcast map, verified from the race's official coverage listing.
The course is Bergamo to Como, 239 km, 4,600 metres of climbing, closing with the double ascent of San Fermo della Battaglia and 16 km of hard descending into Como.
United Kingdom
TNT Sports holds the TV rights.
Streaming is through HBO Max, which replaced Discovery+ in the UK and Ireland in March 2026 as the home of TNT Sports streaming content.
TNT Sports typically joins coverage mid-race rather than from the official start. The decisive final hour is always covered. Check the TNT Sports or HBO Max schedule the morning of the race for the exact pickup time.
United States
HBO Max is the primary streaming home.
The service picked up the former Discovery+ cycling package through the Warner Bros. Discovery global cycling rights deal. Live coverage is available with the Max subscription that includes TNT Sports.
For riders who want a dedicated cycling-only option, FloBikes also carries live Il Lombardia coverage in North America.
Race start is 04:45 ET on Saturday morning. Finish between 10:40 and 11:20 ET.
Canada and North America
FloBikes is the primary dedicated cycling platform.
FloBikes carries full live coverage with English commentary. Subscription required.
Italy
Rai holds the free-to-air rights.
Italian viewers can also access coverage through Eurosport and Discovery+, plus HBO Max following the WBD streaming reorganisation.
Rai coverage is historically the deepest. Il Lombardia is Rai's home race.
Rest of Europe
Across most of continental Europe, the race is on Eurosport and HBO Max, which carries the full Warner Bros. Discovery cycling package.
Belgium: RTBF (French-language free-to-air) and VRT (Flemish free-to-air). This is a Monument with heavy Belgian favourite interest, so expect significant pre-race coverage.
Switzerland: SRG.
France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain: Eurosport is the primary pick-up, with HBO Max carrying the same feed through the WBD rights.
Australia and New Zealand
SBS carries live coverage in Australia.
SBS On Demand streaming also carries the full race replay for free. This remains one of the best free-to-air cycling broadcasts in the world.
Race starts 19:45 AEDT Saturday evening and finishes around 02:00 AEDT Sunday morning. The decisive final hour is prime viewing between 00:00 and 01:00 AEDT.
Japan
J Sports has the rights.
South America
DirecTV carries the race across most countries. ESPN holds the rights in Central America. Sport TV covers Bolivia specifically.
Rest of World
- China: Zhibo TV
- Russia: Okko
- Caribbean: CPSL
- South Africa: SuperSport
When the Race Actually Starts to Matter
The official start is 10:45 CET, but Il Lombardia does not become a race until the Civiglio.
The first three hours of the race are a long transit through the Lombard valleys and up the early classified climbs. These are beautiful to watch for cycling-tourism reasons. They rarely decide the outcome.
Here is the realistic viewing schedule for the parts you cannot miss.
Approximate CET timings:
- 10:45: Flag drops in Bergamo
- 13:30: Selvino, the first categorised climb
- 14:30: Madonna del Ghisallo, the race's spiritual home
- 15:00: Muro di Sormano, the hardest climb and historic selection point
- 15:30: Civiglio, the real selection climb at 4.2 km and 9.7% average
- 15:55: First passage of San Fermo della Battaglia
- 16:30-17:00: Second San Fermo and finish in Como
If you can only watch one hour of the race, make it 15:00 to 16:00 CET. That is where every Lombardia of the past decade has been decided.
If you can watch 90 minutes, extend it to 15:00 to 16:30. That captures the Sormano, the Civiglio, both passages of San Fermo, and the 10-km descent into Como where tactical margins get rewritten in real time.
The actual winning move usually happens in a 20-minute window between the Civiglio's lower slopes and the first San Fermo passage. If you time your coffee break around 15:30 CET, you will miss it.
Where to Get Live Timing
Official live timing is on the race website at ilombardia.it. The RCS Sport ProCyclingUK app also carries live GPS tracking.
For live standings, time gaps, and category points, ProCyclingStats runs real-time race coverage.
For in-race power estimates and climb breakdowns, CyclingUpToDate usually publishes live analysis within minutes of each decisive move.
Why Saturday Matters More Than Usual
Tadej Pogacar has won the past five editions of Il Lombardia. He will not start this one, following his C7 vertebra fracture at the Worlds in Montreal.
This is the first Lombardia without him since 2020. The last Lombardia without him was won by a 35-year-old Jakob Fuglsang.
Remco Evenepoel is the pre-race favourite. He has finished second to Pogacar in each of the last two editions.
The other names to watch include Isaac del Toro, Giulio Ciccone, Tom Pidcock, Matteo Jorgenson, Giro dell'Emilia winner Davide Piganzoli, and 18-year-old French prodigy Paul Seixas.
For a cyclist watching from outside Europe, this is also one of the most tactically readable Monuments.
The final 30 km is a sequence of two climbs and two descents that unfolds slowly enough to follow in real time, with camera angles that cycling broadcast has refined over the race's 120-year history.
If you are new to Monument racing, this is the one to start with.
How This Preview Compares to the Spring Monuments
Lombardia is structurally different from both. The cobbled Classics reward power and bike-handling. Lombardia rewards sustained climbing durability and tactical patience over five hours.
Different race, different winners, different physiology. Which is why the podium is historically much harder to predict for Lombardia than for Flanders or Roubaix.
What to Set Your Alarm For
Pick your region, pick your broadcaster, and set alarms for two moments.
15:00 CET when the Civiglio and Sormano sequence begins. This is where the field explodes.
15:55 CET for the first passage of San Fermo della Battaglia, which usually produces the winning move.
Everything before those moments is a long and beautiful transit through the Lombard foothills. Everything after is one of the oldest and most unpredictable Monuments in cycling, running its 120th edition.
Saturday will tell you who the next generation of Monument winners actually is. The broadcast is almost everywhere.
Pick your screen. Set the alarm.
Then watch.
