‘I had good legs but I didn’t use them’ – sprint costs Vollering and Longo Borghini in Liège-Bastogne-Liège

As two of the strongest Classics riders and climbers in the field, Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) started Liège-Bastogne-Liège as big favourites, but were ultimately foiled in the final sprint by winner Grace Brown (FDJ-SUEZ).

After proving their strength to bridge to the breakaway on the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, alongside Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), none of the trio seemed to have an answer to the question of how to make a difference on the flat with no more climbing left.

Despite attempts from Longo Borghini and some one-two attacks from Canyon-SRAM, it all came together for a sprint, with Longo Borghini taking second and Vollering third behind the surging power of Brown, who had been in the day’s break.

Despite being the teams of the Classics season, SD Worx-Protime and Lidl-Trek come away from the Ardennes trio without any wins between them.

Read more: Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Grace Brown sprints to big victory after day in breakaway

For Vollering, who won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the other two Ardennes races in 2023, a podium – for the fifth time – is not really what she was hoping to achieve on Sunday, and something she put down to her own tactics and thoughts in the final.

“I felt really good today, and I was again in the position to go for the win, but I couldn’t do it, because I gambled a bit too much in the sprint. That was a bit stupid,” she said with tears still in her eyes at the finish.

“I felt so good also in the sprint, I should have gone much earlier, because I had good legs and I didn’t use them in the final.

"It’s a big disappointment to end the Classics season without a personal victory. But I’m even more disappointed that I couldn’t thank my teammates with a win after all their work."

Tour of Flanders winner Longo Borghini has made no secret of how she shaped her spring around the Ardennes – three races missing from her palmarès – and she comes away from the week without a win, but that didn’t seem to bring her too much disappointment.

“I have to say that I’m satisfied, I came here for a good result and I had good legs,” she said. “I tried my best and today the fastest won, so congratulations to Grace Brown, she was really the fastest. For me, I can say that I did my best along with my teammates.

“It’s a bit disappointing to be second, but it’s cycling, it’s sport. I’m happy also.”

At times it looked like the favourites may have given the breakaway too long a leash, with the strong trio of Brown, Kim Cadzow (EF Education-Cannondale) and Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) still quite a way ahead with 20km to go, but the peloton weren’t stressed about bringing them back.

“It’s already a lot of times that there’s a group out in the final with a big gap, but the final is so hard, so I always believed we could get this group back. We did, because the last climb is just really hard, so that all went good actually,” Vollering said.

“To be fair, I always believed that we would catch the breakaway because we have a strong team,” Longo Borghini concurred. “Demi rode very strongly onto Roche-aux-Faucons, and I knew I just had to finish off the work of my teammates. I was really sure that we would catch them, but there was a chance they would stay with us because in the final it’s a bit easier as you enter Liège with the downhill.”

However, making the catch wasn’t enough in the end, with the breakaway strong enough to stick with Vollering, Longo Borghini and Niewiadoma. Vollering and Longo Borghini were stronger than almost everyone in the sprint, but the final kick from Grace Brown was the last hurdle that neither of them could overcome.

“Maybe I was the strongest, but not always the strongest wins,” Longo Borghini concluded. “Sometimes it’s the fastest or the smartest, and this is what makes cycling fantastic in my opinion. I don’t think I did too much, I just did what I had to do.”