Pogacar Holds Off French Teen To Claim Third Straight Liège-bastogne-liège Title

The world champion, Tadej Pogacar, pulled up of nan 19-year-old French debutant Paul Seixas successful nan last climb to unafraid his 3rd consecutive Liège-Bastogne-Liège title connected Sunday, his 4th wide triumph successful nan race.

Pogacar vanished nan 259.5-km title successful 5 hours, 50 minutes and 28 seconds to triumph nan 13th monument title of his profession and his 3rd of nan twelvemonth aft nan Tour of Flanders and Milan-San Remo.

“It intends a batch to triumph again 1 of nan biggest races of nan year, of cycling … there’s a batch of unit connected maine to deliver, I’m really happy that we succeeded,” said Pogacar, who is now 1 Liège title short of Belgium’s Eddy Merckx, who won nan title a grounds 5 times betwixt 1969 and 1975.

Seixas kept up pinch Pogacar erstwhile nan Slovenian stuck to nan scheme that brought him occurrence successful nan past 2 years and launched his onslaught connected nan climb astatine nan Côte de la Redoute, staying connected nan four-time Tour de France winner’s instrumentality for astir 20km while others fell behind.

But during nan climb to Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, pinch little than 14km near successful nan race, nan 27-year-old Pogacar sped ahead, leaving an exhausted Seixas behind.

“On nan Redoute I was really going deep. But connected nan top, he came adjacent to maine and I was like, OK, really impressed,” Pogacar said astir Seixas. “Maybe backmost successful my head, I was already preparing to do a duel sprint because he was truthful strong.“

Seixas, who was trying to go nan first Frenchman to triumph nan Liège title since 1980, vanished 45 seconds aft Pogacar, while nan Belgian two-time victor Remco Evenepoel won a sprint for 3rd place.