Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) soloed to victory on Sunday at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, attacking 34km from the finish on the Côte de la Redoute. Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL) was second at 1:39″, while Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the sprint for third from the peloton, finishing at 2:02″.
The breakaway took shape quickly at the beginning, with a quartet of riders launching their attack just 3km into the race: Gil Gelders (Soudal Quick-Step), Rémy Rochas (Groupama-FDJ), Lilian Calmejane (Intermarché-Wanty), and Paul Ourselin (TotalEnergies).
Shortly after, a counter-attack emerged from the peloton, adding more firepower to the front with Iván Romeo (Movistar), Christian Scaroni (Astana Qazaqstan), Loïc Vliegen (Bingoal WB), Fabien Douby (TotalEnergies), and Enzo Leijnse (dsm-firmenich PostNL) bridging the gap and swelling the lead group to nine riders.
At 150 kilometers, the breakaway had a lead of more than four minutes. At the front of the peloton, Sjoerd Bax of UAE Team Emirates kept tempo to keep teammate Tadej Pogačar within striking distance. With 100km remaining, more teams came to the front of the peloton and the breakaway’s lead was cut significantly until it was only around one minute.
Soon after, a crash caused a split in the peloton and Mathieu van der Poel found himself in the wrong place behind the crash. With about 70km to go the race came back together and the peloton began to prepare for the final climbs. At 35km, they hit the Côte de la Redoute andTadej Pogačar, as predicted, launched his attack and quickly dropped his rivals.
Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) then launched an attack at around 30 kilometers, taking Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Benoît Cosnefroy (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), and Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ) with him.
On the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, Bardet attacked, left his three companions behind, and rode in alone to finish 1:39″ behind Pogačar. A little more than twenty seconds later, Van der Poel won the sprint for 3rd from the peloton.
Results
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/liege-bastogne-liege/2024/result
