Results from Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2024

It was a grim, chilly day at La Doyenne, one of the oldest, most revered bike races in Monuments season. The men’s race was drama-filled, with a small attack early in the race getting reabsorbed as the big climbs started, and a massive crash split up the three riders we expected to see in the final sprint. UAE Team Emirates had the best luck—and tactics—of the day, and Tadej Pogačar had one of the biggest margins of victory in Liège-Bastogne-Liège in years.

Here’s how the race played out:

Liège-Bastogne-Liège Men’s Recap

With Tom Pidcock (INEOS Grenadiers), Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in the mix, this was bound to be a fascinating race to watch, and they did not disappoint.

Early in the race, a group of nine riders containing Lilian Calmejane, Rochas Remy, Gil Gelders, Christian Scaroni, Fabien Doubey, Paul Ourselin, Loic Vliegen, and Enzo Leijnse. The group eventually whittled down to five riders—Gelders, Rochas, Scaroni, Doubey, Ourselin—and grew their advantage to a few minutes, but the strong peloton slowly began to reel them back in as they hit the 130 kilometers to go point.

It all seemed relatively calm until the course ticked to under 100 kilometers to go. Within minutes, two crashes slowed the peloton, the first just taking down three riders but the second stopping half of the peloton—including Van der Poel— for over a minute.

By 94 kilometers to go—at the start of the hilliest portion of the course—the front half of the peloton had nearly clawed back the chase group while Van der Poel and the rest of the peloton struggled to catch back up. Riders including Canadian Derek Gee (Israel Premier Tech) took turns at the front, closing on the lead group of five, while Van der Poel’s group was a minute behind the main peloton.

Heading into the Cote de Wanne climb, Gee pressed the pace and closed the gap to the lead group as the climb began. Pidcock, who’d fallen behind with a bike issue, was forced to the side of the road to make a bike change, but unfortunately spent a significant amount of time waiting for the bike and was forced to chase. As they climbed, he was 1:22 behind the leaders, just 13 seconds behind Van der Poel’s group.

With just under 80 kilometers to go, Pidcock made a huge attack on the group containing Van der Poel, racing to try to reconnect with the lead peloton. Only a few riders were able to go with him, including Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal Quickstep)—and Van der Poel was not with him. Within minutes, he’d dropped the gap from 1:20 to 55 seconds, with the chasers 10 seconds back, with the FDJ car somewhat sketchily pacing the chase group back to Pidcock. (The announcers were appalled, as were people watching on Twitter.)

Meanwhile, UAE controlled the front of the lead group and clearly, Pogačar was having the best luck of the day—even if Pidcock or Van der Poel were able to reconnect, Pogačar still had a full accoutrement of his teammates around him and hadn’t been forced to chase, while Pidcock and Van der Poel would be tired from their earlier chases.

Pidcock’s group whittled down the time to the leaders down to 25 seconds, and his attack clearly spurred on the group behind him, and their gap dropped to under 40 seconds with 73 kilometers to go. (Which may have also been thanks to yet another team car pushing the pace at the front.)

Pidcock’s attack worked, and he managed to slot into the lead group as the rest of the peloton also attached to the back a few seconds later. As the announcers pointed out, the team car situation felt a bit egregious, though considering the peloton was separated due to a massive crash, it felt like a bit of a gray area.

The peloton was together as they hit the Col du Rosier, with UAE still on the front. Heading into Cote de la Redoute, with some of the steepest grades, the UAE team swarmed to the front, clearly setting up for Pogačar to make his move while Movistar and EF Education-EasyPost moved riders towards the head of the group as well.

Pogačar attacked, opening up a gap quickly with EF Education-EasyPost trying to go with him, as Richard Carapaz was just able to stay in contact with his wheel. But within a minute, Carapaz clearly was unable to hold Pogačar’s pace as Ineos Grenadiers attempted to swarm to the front. But the gap continued to open.

By the top of the climb, Pogačar’s lead had grown to eight seconds while Pidcock was dropped back in the chase. And Pogačar only grew his lead—up to over 90 seconds by 15 kilometers to go—while behind him, the race clearly became less about catching the UAE rider and more about podium positions.

At 13 kilometers to go, Roman Bardet (dsm-firmenich) attacked on the final climb, as Carapaz and his teammate Ben Healy tried to hang on to his wheel. Bardet managed to go clear of the group, with 1:50 between him and Pogačar while behind him, the whittled down group of pursuers including Van der Poel, Healy and Pidcock raced 19 seconds behind Bardet.

With a kilometer to go and nearly two minutes of lead time on Bardet, Pogačar had plenty of time to celebrate his victory. Behind him, Bardet hung onto his lead for second. Behind him, a group of 20 riders fought for position in the final kilometer, with Van der Poel leading into the sprint and taking the third place on the podium.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2024 Men’s Results

1. Tadej Pogačar

2. Roman Bardet

3. Mathieu Van der Poel

4. Maxim Van Gils

5. Aurelien Paret-Peintre

6. Mauri Vansevenant

7. Valentin Madouas

8. Alexey Lutsenko

9. Pello Bilbao

10. Thomas Pidcock

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