CYCLING – ‘Les Classiques Ardennaises’ come to a close tomorrow with Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the oldest of cycling’s ‘Monuments’.
Unlike the three already been raced this year (Milano-Sanremo, Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix), this final test of the Spring one-day season is suited to climbers and even Grand Tour specialists, which always leads to a high quality and varied startlist.
Team Bahrain Victorious are in Belgium with an incredibly strong line-up, and high hopes of a top result. Leading, will be Pello Bilbao and Santiago Buitrago, both of whom are here for the third time. Santi was on the podium last year after a heroic effort chasing runaway winner Remco Evenepoel on the final two climbs.
With the 2022 World Champion still out following his crash at Itzulia, the burden of ‘favourites’ now falls on his successor, Mathieu van der Poel (ADC), who has already taken E3, Flanders and Roubaix in the past month, double Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE), and last year’s runner-up Tom Pidcock (IGD) who was victorious at Amstel Gold Race a week ago.
Bilbao already has 13 top ten results this year, and is in ever-better shape heading towards the Tour de France in July.
This season, Buitrago has won the Youth Classification at the Volta Valenciana, a stage at Paris-Nice, and was fifth at Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday, as well as finishing third here 12 months ago. ‘La Doyenne’ has a special place in the Colombian’s cycling heart: “Liège is emotional for me: it’s my first monument of the year and has been marked out as an objective to equal what I did here last year. So I’m super motivated.
“We have a really good team, with Wout Poels coming, and Antonio Tiberi. They’re going to work so well, and I think that Pello and I can do great things together in the finale too.
“My preparation has been great for Liège, but the route is really tough, plus there are guys like Pogačar and Van der Poel, so we will need be alert all the time, looking out for long-range moves. I am genuinely confident; I really believe we can get on that podium again”
Both Poels and Tiberi finished in the top six overall at the Tour of the Alps this week, with the Italian taking the White Jersey.
Wout won Liège in 2016, is the last dutch winner, and starts for an 11th time. Antonio makes his debut.
Sports director Roman Kreuziger has the experience of 12 Liège participations, and is buoyed by the strength of our roster: “With Tadej & Mathieu here, no-one is considering us as top contenders, but our line-up is strong. Having said that, if we are to achieve our goals we will need to race as a team and be ready to follow any strong move from as early as 150km.
“We will have to see how much Wout and Antonio have left in the tank after their efforts at TotA, but traditionally guys can perform well coming straight from there; as Santi did last year for example.
“Like everyone, Pello suffered in the cold on Wednesday, but this is a parcours better suited to him, he’s confident, in great shape, and the forecast is considerably better, thank goodness!”