BRUSSELS — World champion Tadej Pogacar is the clear favourite but may face a tougher test than expected if he is to claim a fourth victory at Liege-Bastogne-Liege in Belgium on Sunday.
The 27-year-old Slovenian’s victories in the two previous years followed a similar pattern as he accelerated clear of the field on the Redoute climb with around 35km to ride of the 260km race, which was first held in 1892, in the Belgian Ardennes.
This year, though, he may find it tougher to go solo on that ascent with French teenage sensation Paul Seixas on his wheel, AFP reported.
Pogacar, a four-time Tour de France winner, has made a habit of launching long-range attacks to win one-day races – most notably at Strade Bianche, where his burst 80km from the finish has proved decisive in the last two years.
But last month, 19-year-old talent Seixas almost held onto Pogacar’s wheel on the white Tuscan gravel roads before being distanced and coming home second.
The very fact that he was prepared to try when some of the world’s top classics specialists such as Tom Pidcock and Wout van Aert did not, was in itself telling.
Since then, Seixas has gone from strength to strength, winning the week-long Tour of the Basque Country and then succeeding Pogacar as winner of La Fleche Wallonne on Wednesday.
Pogacar and Seixas have faced each other four times in one-day races, with the 27-year-old world champion unsurprisingly coming out on top each time.
But Seixas has been getting closer.
From finishing 13th more than nine minutes behind at the World Championships last September, to third at the European Championships and seventh at the Tour of Lombardy the following month, he was only a minute behind at Strade Bianche.
Still, he does not expect to actually beat Pogacar this time.
“This question is crazy. We’re talking about maybe the best rider of all time,” he said after his victory at La Fleche Wallonne.
“Right now, I don’t think that I have the level to beat him.
“Of course, I’ll try to be the best, or one of the best, but you have to put the work in first and prove yourself in the race – after that you can talk.”
Seixas is himself no stranger to Pogacar-style long-range attacks, having broken clear with 40km left to win the Ardeche Classic in February.
“There are clearly similarities between him and Pogi,” said Julien Jurdie, one of Seixas’s sports directors at his Decathlon CMA CGM team.
Pogacar will almost certainly make his move on the Cote de la Redoute.
Remco Evenepoel, who won in Liege in 2022 and 2023, set the blueprint for La Doyenne success by making his winning moves there in both years.
But Evenepoel is unlikely to be able to follow a Pogacar acceleration on the steepest part of the climb, whereas Seixas might.
Evenepoel does come into the race in fine one-day form, however, having finished third in his Tour of Flanders debut three weeks ago – behind Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel – before winning Amstel Gold last Sunday.
