Here Are the Results and Highlights from 2023 Liège-Bastogne-Liège

The third and final race of the Ardennes classics brought more excitement to the roads on Sunday with perhaps the most prestigious of the trio, Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

It started with a great sprint finish in the women’s edition, as some of the top riders in the world battled it out for the victory. On the men’s side, one big favorite crashed out, while another rode to the win. Here’s how it played out.

Vollering completes the Ardennes triple

On the women’s side, we were once again treated to a master class of team tactics by SD Worx. Marlen Reusser went away with the mission of stringing out and breaking the legs of the peloton with 35K to go, and that she did.

Eventually Trek-Segafredo had no choice but to respond and sent Amanda Spratt to the front of the chase group. Her job? To drop the hammer and catapult Elisa Longo Borghini, Trek-Segafredo’s race leader and one of the favorites, up to join Reusser.

At 14.4K to the finish, climbing up the Cote de la Rouches, Longo Borghini launched the Trek-Segafredo’s challenge of the SD Works dominance we’ve seen throughout the spring classics this season. Demi Vollering knew it was time to come out from hiding in the chase group to respond and position herself at the front.

The two women worked together in the lead up to the final sprint, when they slowed down as they turned into the final straight away, marking each other, each rider trying to wait until the last possible moment to launch their sprint.

While the SD Worx squad gave us yet another lesson in team strategy, Vollering herself gave the world a lesson in one-on-one sprinting tactics during a mesmerizing, perfectly executed cat-and-mouse final sprint with Longo Borghini.

“I was really happy that Elisa wanted to work with me. Then in the last K, we really needed to gamble. I knew I could gamble because I also had Marlen (Reusser) behind me, of course, so that made it a bit easier for me. I’m just really happy that i could win the sprint and take it home,” Vollering said after the race.

And with that perfect execution, Vollering becomes the second woman to pull off an Ardennes hat trick. The only other female rider who can claim this on her palmares? SD Worx Directeur Sportif Anna Van Der Breggen, who achieved an Ardennes three-peat in 2017, the first year that LBL had a women’s race.

“I really wanted to win this one, especially because now I have the chance to win three in a row and it’s not a chance you get every day. Anna is not here today, unfortunately, but I am sure she watched the TV and jumped around at home,” said Vollering. We were right with Anna, jumping around at home watching Vollering's historic win.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes - Top 10

1. Demi Vollering (SD Worx)

2. Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo)

3. Marlen Reusser (SD Worx)

4. Riejanne Markus (Jumbo-Visma)

5. Elise Chabbey (Canyon//SRAM)

6. Annemiek van Vlueten (Movistar)

7. Gaia Realini (Trek-Segafredo)

8. Liane Lippert (Movistar)

9. Soraya Paladin (Canyon//SRAM)

10. Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx)

Pogacar crashes, Evenepoel rides away to victory

The biggest story of the men’s race arguably happened before the race broadcast on Peacock even started. By the time we were dropped into the race by broadcasters with only 160K to go, Tadej Pogačar—the UAE Team Emirates rider everyone had marked as the favorite —had not only crashed, but had been forced to abandon the race.

By 75K repeated attacks had spread the peloton out to the point that there were “riders all over the place,” to quote ex-pro turned race announcer Christian Vande Velde. It was clear that teams were scrambling to reassess and change their plans and strategies on the fly.

Jan Tratnik of Jumbo-Visma launched a long-range attack and Simone Velasco of Astana was the only rider who was able to hang one to his wheel. The Jumbo-Visma team leader Tiesj Benoot seemed to settle into the back of the remnants of the peloton.

Ultimately all eyes settled on world champion Remco Evenepoel of Soudal-QuickStep, who was the favorite challenger to Pogačar coming into the race. His teammates took control of the chase to the leaders and began to steamroll their team leader’s path towards the tete de la course.

At about 39K to go, INEOS Grenadiers got the command and mobilized to the front of the chase group en masse, bringing their team leader and race favorite Tom Pidcock with them. Heavy rains fell on the riders at this point, adding yet another factor.

The breakaway group of two was swallowed on the third to last climb by the Soudal-Quickstep train. However, Ineos Grenadiers was not letting them out of sight and kept several domestiques at the front, positioning Pidcock in an advantageous spot to respond to the attack from Evenepoel that everyone knew was an eventual inevitability.

Moments later with 33.5K to go Evenepoel made his move and attacked uphill. Pidcock attempted to fight his way back to his wheel and was eventually able to make contact and hang on.

About 5k later, Evenepoel decided he didn’t want a wheelsucker, he showed off the results of his past month of altitude training by riding Pidcock off his wheel as though Pidcock, one of the best cyclists in the world, was quickly dropped.

After that Evenepoel, as the lone leader, settled into time trial mode, and despite there still being two climbs and 30K to go. It became hard to imagine anyone being able to catch him. Anyone, that is, other than Tadej Pogačar.

The race within the race for the remainder of the podium began to organize with 16K left before the finish with Pidcock trying to rally a chase, all while Evenepoel continued to put time into the group. By the time he cruised across the finish line, he had put over a minute and a half between himself and second place.

The sprint for the podium saw Pidcock coming around Ef-Education’s Ben Healy and Bahrain-Victorious rider Santiago Buitrago to take second place. Buitrago and Healy finished in third and fourth place, respectively.

“It’s a very hard race, a very hard course,” the winner Evenepoel said in his post race interview. “My team did an incredible amount of work. It’s their victory as well.”

Liège-Bastogne-Liège - Men’s Top 10

1. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep)

2. Tom Pidcock (INEOS Grenadiers)

3. Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious)

4. Ben Healy (EF-Education-EasyPost)

5. Valentin Madouas (Groupama–FDJ)

6. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis)

7. Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma)

8. Patrick Konrad (Bora-Hansgrohe)

9. Skjelmose Jensen (Trek-Segafredo)

10. Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates)

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