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World champion Remco Evenepoel defends Liège-Bastogne-Liège title

Michael Woods in 12th place

Photo by: Sirotti

World champion Remco Evenepoel won Sunday’s 109th edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the fourth Monument of the season, defending his title to the delight of the Belgian crowds. The highly anticipated Liège-Bastogne-Liège showdown between Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel has was scuppered, as the Slovenian ace crashed out in the first half of Sunday’s La Doyenne with a broken wrist. Evenepoel takes fine form into the Giro d’Italia, which starts in two weeks.

Introduction and Course

It looked like finally Pogačar and reigning titlist Evenepoel were going to get down to 2023 business. Pogačar, the 2021 champ, was rolling, having taken the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold Race and La Fleche Wallonne in his last three races. The podium men in the last two of those three races—Ben Healy, Mattias Skjelmose, Mikel Landa and Tom Pidcock—were on the start line.

Michael Woods, 2018 runner-up and fourth in Wednesday’s La Fleche Wallonne, and Guillaume Boivin flew the Canadian flag.

The fourth Monument of the season took place over 258 Belgian kilometres. Eleven climbs awaited the riders, with the final three sure to elicit attacks. The Cote de La Redoute crested at the 224 km mark—it was 1.8 km of 7.8 percent. Next came Cote des Forges, 1.2 km of 7.8 percent. The last ascent was Cote de la Roche-aux-Faucons, a nasty affair at 1.3 km of 10.1 percent, peaking with 13 km until the finish line in Liège. It was a wet edition.

Eleven riders formed the day’s breakaway, an even mix of WorldTeam and ProTeam fellows. They had a 4:00 gap by the first climb of the day.

Between the first and second climbs, at the 84.5 km mark, Pogačar crashed with an EF Education-Easypost rider, Dane Mikkel Frølich Honoré. Both had to abandon.

By the middle climbs, the breakaway was in pieces, and Jumbo-Visma’s Czech Jan Tratnik bridged to its remnants. Soon it was only Tratnik and Astana’s Simone Velasco hurtling towards the Col de Rosier. Soudal-QuickStep had done a lot of the work in the peloton. Fifty kilometres and five climbs remained, and the duo only had a half minute’s lead.

On the Côte de Desnié, the climb before the La Redoute, a surge from Bauke Mollema cut Evenepoel’s teammates down to one. La Redoute spelled the end of the breakaway, and streamlined the field even further. Evenepoel attacked and Pidcock went with him. On the descent Trek’s Sjelmose and Giulio Ciccone endeavoured to join in.

Before Cote des Forges Evenepoel dumped Pidcock.

Evenepoel goes solo with 30 km to race.

The Trek chasers found Pidcock, Healy came over and the quartet started thinking about podium strategy as Evenepoel worked his lead up to a minute. The Pidcock pursuit group continued to grow, but could it make any inroads on the white-clad Belgian‘s gap? Woods was in the group too, as was Andreas Kron until he crashed and disappeared into a hedge like Homer Simpson. Kron too had to retire from the race.

Heading onto Roche-aux-Faucons, Evenepoel’s lead was 1:20. Ben Healy’s thrust thinned out the chase group to him, Pidcock and Santiago Buitrago. Pidcock was runner-up and Buitrago rounded out the podium.

Evenepoel had plenty of time to celebrate.

2023 Liège-Bastogne-Liège
1) Remco Evenepoel (Belgium/Soudal-QuickStep) 6:15:49
2) Tom Pidcock (Great Britain/Ineos Grenadiers) +1:06
3) Santiago Buitrago (Colombia/Bahrain-Victorious) s.t.
12) Michael Woods (Canada/Israel-Premier Tech) +1:48