Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Tadej Pogačar wins with 35km solo attack

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) won the men's Liège-Bastogne-Liège, attacking on the Côte de la Redoute and riding 35km solo to the finish to take his sixth career Monument victory.

The Slovenian started the race as the out-and-out favourite, and many even predicted exactly where his attack would go, but foresight meant nothing on Sunday because when he launched on the climb, no one could stick to his wheel and he would not be seen again all day.

The battle for second and third was a closer one. On the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL) attacked from the chasers to go alone, and though he only ever had a slim gap, he held on to take second in Liège.

Third place came down to a sprint from a fairly large group, which was won by Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) the podium a consolation for the rider who was hoping to try to win a third Monument in a row.

It had been a challenging day for pre-race hopefuls Van der Poel and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) who spent much of the middle part of the day chasing back onto the peloton after being caught behind a crash. Though they made the catch, it had been a big effort and neither were close to following Pogačar when he attacked. Pidcock finished 10th.

“It was a miserable day from the start, but we kept pushing hard with the team. We made a good pace so we kept a little bit more warm,” Pogačar said of the day that had started in four-degree weather.

“It was quite emotional for me all day riding on the bike and thinking of Urška’s [Žigart, his partner] mother from two years ago when we had to go home, and last year when I broke my hand. The last two years were really difficult anyway. I was riding for Urška’s mother today and I’m really happy that finally I can again win this beautiful race,” he continued, paying tribute to his fiancée’s mother, who died shortly before this race in 2022.

“Thanks to all the team that worked for me today. It was amazing teamwork and I couldn’t have done it without them. I’m full of emotion.”

Victory in Liège this year marks Pogačar’s second in the race after winning in 2021, and the sixth Monument of his career. He will now go on to the Giro d’Italia, where he will be hoping to take his first Grand Tour title since 2021.

A subdued start to a cold day

As the peloton left Liège and the flag dropped, the attacks started almost immediately and it took less than 5km for the first breakaway riders to get away, with the peloton clearly happy to get that fight done early. Four riders got away at first, with five more bridging across in the first 10km.

The nine riders in the breakaway were: Gil Gelders (Soudal Quick-Step), Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ), Enzo Leijnse (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Cristian Scaroni (Astana Qazaqstan), Lilian Calmejane (Intermarché-Wanty), Iván Romeo (Movistar), Fabien Doubey, Paul Ourselin (both TotalEnergies) and Loïc Vliegen (Bingoal WB). They quickly built up a lead of three minutes, which was kept steady by UAE Team Emirates and Alpecin-Deceuninck controlling the peloton.

After around an hour of racing, rain briefly began to fall, but thankfully it did not last for long in the already cold conditions. On the first climb, the Côte de Bonnerue, Ourselin took the KoM sprint as the break held a steady lead, and it remained this way for much of the first 100km of racing, even increasing the gap out to four and a half minutes at one point.

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The day's early break battle the poor conditions

It was heading into the final 140km and on the Côte de Saint-Roch when the gap started to come down, as UAE Team Emirates applied the pressure on the front of the peloton. With 100km to go, not much had happened but the gap was down to a minute and a half, with the back-to-back decisive climbs drawing close. At this point, Alpecin-Deceuninck and Ineos Grenadiers started contributing to the chase as the favourites started to move towards the front and the gap continued to fall.

Tensions rise as the climbs approach

A crash at 99km to go saw William Junior Lecerf (Soudal Quick-Step), Chris Hamilton (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Toon Clynhens (Flanders-Baloise) go down and come dangerously close to taking out Van der Poel, but the world champion got through unscathed. Shortly after a much bigger crash on a narrow bit of road saw several riders go down, but more importantly a good two thirds of the bunch were caught behind the crash and had to stop, including Van der Poel and Pidcock.

Those affected all got up and started riding again quickly, but with Israel-Premier Tech pushing hard on the front of the peloton, gaps opened up and there were groups spread all over the road for several kilometres. Van der Poel found himself in a 50-strong group 45 seconds down on the main peloton, with his teammate Oscar Riesebeek working hard to bring him back, but 10km later they still hadn’t made many inroads.

On the Côte de Wanne, the peloton caught the break, and the race was on with still 88km to go, as Israel and UAE continued to set the pace to try to keep Van der Poel and his group away. An untimely mechanical for Pidcock saw him drop out of the Van der Poel group and have to chase back on, with the gap only growing, not shrinking. Ineos eventually joined the chase with Van der Poel’s teammates all spent.

Pidcock and Van der Poel fight to get back

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Mathieu van der Poel in the chasing group

On the Côte de Stockeu, UAE were settling a fierce pace on the climb, with Pogačar sitting ominously close to the front, legwarmers off. When the second group hit the climb, Pidcock launched a move to try and finally get across, whilst Van der Poel slid down the group behind. Pidcock found himself in between the groups with Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal Quick-Step) and Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) but still they found it hard to make much progress against the strong front group, with Omar Fraile and Pieter Serry dropping back to help their teammates.

After looking like it wouldn’t happen for a while, the Pidcock group rejoined the peloton with 72km, quickly followed by the Van der Poel group, as the lull between climbs saw a slowing in the peloton and things were allowed to regroup. With Van der Poel back, Alpecin took control of the group for a while, but UAE quickly took over again on the next climb.

After a fairly dramatic hour of racing, things did settle for a while over the next few kilometres, with riders biding their time until the next key moments. UAE were still controlling things, with Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale also contributing. Though the attacks weren’t flying, the peloton had been significantly whittled down to fewer than 50 riders.

Pogačar attacks on La Redoute

Heading into the final 40km, it was almost a sprint into the base of the Côte de la Redoute. UAE Team Emirates’ Domen Novak led into the 1.5km climb, stringing things out straight away with Pogačar third wheel. With 900m to go on the climb – 35km in the race – Pogačar launched his expected attack, with Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) initially able to follow, but the Slovenian dropped the Ecuadorian quickly on the hardest part of the climb. Cresting the official top of the climb, Pogačar had already pulled out a gap of over 10 seconds, with the likes of Skjelmose and Van der Poel not responding at all.

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Pogačar solo on La Redoute

Though the whole peloton appeared to have foreseen the attack, there was still little they could do in the face of Pogačar’s power, and the gap grew very quickly as he settled into his pace in the lead, reaching almost a minute with 30km to go. The group that established itself behind him was fairly large, with Pidcock, Egan Bernal, Skjelmose, Ben Healy and Tiesj Benoot all in there, though Van der Poel was in the third group.

Behind, the race became for second and third quite quickly, with Healy and Romain Bardet attacking out of the group to try and chase in between, soon joined by Benoît Cosnefroy (Decathlon AG2R Mondiale) and Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ). This foursome got a gap of around 20 seconds over the third group, which swelled to include Van der Poel.

With 20km to go, Pogačar’s lead had grown out to a minute and twenty seconds, with it clearly becoming his race to lose, barring any incident. On the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, the final climb of the day, the four chasers started to attack each other, with moves firing from the third group as well, including from Bernal. Bardet crossed the crest of the climb alone, though not far ahead of the riders chasing him, who had been caught by the front of the third group.

In the final 6km, Van der Poel went on a mission to rejoin the main chasing group, perhaps to preserve his chances of a top finish, and he made the junction going into the last 5km as they sat 20 seconds down on Bardet. Van der Poel’s presence probably slightly stalled the chase, and a big group swelled in the chase for third, as Bardet consolidated his podium spot in second.

Assured in his lead, Pogačar crossed the line with his arms pointed towards the sky in tribute to his late mother in law as he celebrated the victory. Bardet came home safely in second, whilst in the sprint for third Van der Poel opened up early and held the lead to secure a podium finish, just in front of spring revelation Maxim Van Gils (Lotto Dstny).