The world champion, Tadej Pogacar, pulled ahead of the 19-year-old French debutant Paul Seixas in the final climb to secure his third straight Liège-Bastogne-Liège title on Sunday, his fourth overall victory in the race.
Pogacar finished the 259.5-km race in five hours, 50 minutes and 28 seconds to win the 13th monument title of his career and his third of the year after the Tour of Flanders and Milan-San Remo.
“It means a lot to win again one of the biggest races of the year, of cycling … there’s a lot of pressure on me to deliver, I’m really happy that we succeeded,” said Pogacar, who is now one Liège title short of Belgium’s Eddy Merckx, who won the race a record five times between 1969 and 1975.
Seixas kept up with Pogacar when the Slovenian stuck to the plan that brought him success in the last two years and launched his attack on the climb at the Côte de la Redoute, staying on the four-time Tour de France winner’s wheel for nearly 20km while others fell behind.
But during the climb to Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, with less than 14km left in the race, the 27-year-old Pogacar sped ahead, leaving an exhausted Seixas behind.
“On the Redoute I was really going deep. But on the top, he came next to me and I was like, OK, really impressed,” Pogacar said about Seixas. “Maybe back in my head, I was already preparing to do a duel sprint because he was so strong.“
Seixas, who was trying to become the first Frenchman to win the Liège title since 1980, finished 45 seconds after Pogacar, while the Belgian two-time winner Remco Evenepoel won a sprint for third place.