Despite a crash before the Cipressa, Pogacar detonated an attack on the second-to-last climb of the race, taking Pidcock and 2025 winner Mathieu van der Poel with him before dropping the Dutchman on the Poggio, but was unable to shake the Briton.
In the sprint, launched by the Slovenian, he held off his rival to win the first monument of the year. Wout van Aert took the final spot on the podium, in front of Mads Pedersen.
Speaking after the race, Pogacar remarked: "When I crashed, I thought it was all over. Luckily, I was quickly back on the bike and not too much damage.
"My team gave everything to get me back to the front, and they gave me hope.
"If there is no team, I would go straight and not up the Cipressa.
He added: "Tom Pidcock was super strong, and chapeau to Mathieu, he was super strong.
"Tom is a really fast guy, he's punchy, he's fast... I was a bit afraid when he let me go first.
"In the end it was really close."
Pogacar crashes in run-in
The near 300-km run from the outskirts of Milan to Sanremo started in comical fashion with riders going the wrong way down a side street to add more metres into the mammoth race.
But normal service resumed soon after, with a break of nine going up the road. The group, made up of seven Italian riders, one from France and another from Spain, gained a maximum of nearly seven minutes, as Silvan Dillier of Alpecin Premier Tech did his now traditional job of riding solo on the front for hours on end.
Fireworks were suggested to start on the normally benign Passo del Turchino, with Pogacar being talked up to start a long-range attack on the day’s longest climb of the day. However, the peloton kept their powder dry as they slowly ate into the breakaway’s lead.
Misfortune befell former winner Michael Kwiatkowski with 64 kilometres to go. He fell alongside two INEOS Grenadiers teammates, hitting his shin into a signpost.
Next up on the menu were the three ‘Cape’ climbs. The pace was ratcheted up by a selection of different teams, including Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates.
However, this would cause chaos soon after. With the pace growing before the Cipressa, the Slovenian would go down in a crash alongside another pre-race favourite, Van Aert and dark horse Gulio Pellizarri. His shorts were ripped, but he was back on the bike quickly, scrambling to rejoin the charging peloton. Also involved, although not on the tarmac, was Matheiu van der Poel. The incident caught him out, although he was able to get back in before the penultimate climb of the race.
As the ascent began, the reigning world champion rejoined the group and immediately, with the help of Brandon McNulty, was moved back to the front. McNulty and Isaac del Toro ramped up the pace to breaking point before Pogacar went on the attack.
His attack dropped the whole peloton, other than Pidcock and a slightly uncomfortable Van der Poel. Try as he might, though, he could not shake the duo as they crested the Cipressa and headed back down to the coast with more than 30 seconds over the group behind.
Lidl-Trek mustered for the returning Pedersen, and as they reached the bottom of the decisive Poggio climb, the trio out front had just eight seconds to play with.
Pogacar, beaten in a sprint last year, was striving to go solo, and on the early, shallow slopes of the Poggio, he stamped on the pedals, putting down an attack that Van der Poel could not follow. Pidcock, though, was up to the task of following the Slovenian as the pair put time into everyone else.
Time and again, Pogacar mercilessly attacked. Time and again, Pidcock responded and stayed with him in a bike race that was turning into a boxing bout, and they remained together over the top of the Poggio.
As they did on the descent, Pogacar continued to push on, and he got his reward. It was a race that he had chased for years, one of the few that had eluded him, but his legend grew in northern Italy on Saturday.
He has now won four of the five monuments in cycling, needing to win Paris-Roubaix to join Eddy Merckx, Rick Van Looy and Roger De Vlaemick as the only riders to win the set.
