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Liège-Bastogne-Liège - The Classic closer of the Ardennes
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“It’s the best one-day race in cycling.”
American Chris Horner, who placed eighth at last year’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège, says this weekend’s coming edition is the highlight of the season.
But the Predictor-Lotto man’s assessment could just as easily come from world champion Paolo Bettini (Quick Step-Innergetic) or defending Liège champion Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne), or any of the 192 riders expected to start the 93rd edition of Liège Sunday, the final race of the spring classics season.
“It’s a race almost any type of rider can win — a climber, a Tour rider, a time-trial specialist or a one-day specialist,” Horner said. “All the best riders in the world can win this race.”
Now in its 115th year, with 92 editions held between 1892 and 2006, Liège-Bastogne-Liège is known as La Doyenne, the oldest of the classics, and is one of the five monuments of one-day racing along with Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Lombardy. Its 262km course is peppered with 12 short, steep climbs of varying lengths and gradients, including eight in the final 100km, often with little or no recovery. Challengers will have to emerge at the front of the race over the short final climb in the largely Italian neighborhood of Saint Nicolas (900-meters at an average gradient of 11 percent) with enough strength left to secure victory.
“A race like Paris-Roubaix, it’s a fantastic race, it’s great to watch, but there are only a handful of guys that can win it,” Horner said. “You’re not going to have a Tour de France guy win Roubaix. But here the best riders in the world, at whatever they’re good at, can win this race. Maybe it’s not a race for a pure sprinter, but even that, I wouldn’t rule out a guy like Tom Boonen if he really put the focus into it.”
Western Europe has experienced summer-like conditions during this year’s spring classics, without a drop of rain in the month of April. The prediction for Sunday’s race is 81 degrees and sunny, bringing an added element into the fold.
“It’s going to be a race like we’ve never seen before because of the heat,” Bettini said. “Liquids will be very important. In that kind of heat it’s not always easy to eat, but sometimes you have to force yourself to. Liège is usually a race that is pretty cold, so it’s going to be a pretty strange race.”
The list of favorites coming into this year’s race is 10 deep, with no clear favorite. Valverde, last year’s winner, finished second at Wednesday’s Flèche Wallone behind winner Davide Rebellin, who won Liège in 2004. Bettini, winner at Liège in 2000 and 2002, is also a big favorite, though questions were raised when he was seen vomiting from his bike at Flèche and later abandoned. The world champ said it’s nothing to be concerned with now.
“I had stomach problems in Flèche and I had to abandon together with [Quick Step teammate Carlos] Barredo,” Bettini said. “Apparently we were the two guys to eat from the same cake. It’s over now. I felt bad for a couple of hours, I vomited a few times, but that was a big relief. My condition is good, so I recovered pretty well.”
Bettini, Valverde and Rebellin riders all made the winning seven-man break at last Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race, won by Rebellin’s Gerolsteiner teammate Stefan Schumacher. Rebellin won the uphill bunch sprint to take second, while Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas) rounded out the podium.
“I don’t know if you noticed the seven riders in the front in Amstel Gold, and if you looked at the results at Flèche, but they were all big champions,” Bettini said. “If that is a sign, it’s going to be a great show on Sunday.”
Some have suggested that the 33-year-old Quick Step rider lacks the kind of team support that Rebellin will enjoy. At a press conference Friday Bettini dismissed that notion and was happy to give his assessment of his competition. Bettini said Rebellin had made a “big impression” at Flèche and also at the Amstel Gold Race.
“It was due to tactics that Schumacher won the Amstel, but Rebellin was probably the strongest man in the race,” Bettini said. “Di Luca, he is always here in the Ardennes. And we can’t forget Schumacher — you don’t win the Amstel Gold Race by coincidence. To me, Valverde didn’t look that strong at Amstel, but you have to be in good shape to come second at Flèche.”
For his part, after winning Flèche the taciturn Rebellin said simply, “I would very much like to win Liége. We have a strong team, and I’ll start the race with the intention of winning. It’s a race well-suited for me."
Liège has a special meaning to the world champion, who first won in 2000 riding for Mapei.
“This is for me the hardest classic by far,” Bettini said. “In the Amstel Gold Race you can’t count on one team to take responsibility and everyone just waiting for the final. In Flèche everyone waits for the Mur de Huy. At Liège it can happen any time, anywhere. I’m happy to have won the classic twice in the past and I’m hoping for a third win. I have a special attachment for Liège, it was my first big win in a classic and this race made me the rider that I am. I was happy at the time, but only the day after did I realize what I had accomplished.”
Another rider to watch is Astana’s German pit bull Matthias Kessler, fourth at Flèche, and teammate Alex Vinokourov, the winner in 2005. Vinokourov, who is focusing on his preparations for the Tour de France, will likely ride as he did at Flèche, in support of Kessler.
“Vinokourov worked quite a lot for Kessler the other day at Flèche Wallonne, and he’s already won this race,” Bettini said. “In this kind of race it can come down to experience. As a whole, Astana is a great team.”
Other favorites include Rabobank riders Michael Boogerd and Thomas Dekker and CSC’s Frank Schleck, who finished an impressive 10th at Amstel after crashing hard and chasing back into the lead group. Schleck admitted he is still suffering the effects of the crash, but said his fitness is good enough to ride with the best riders at Liège.
“I think I am one of the favorites,” Schleck said. “Whether I can win, I don’t know, but I think I should be considered a favorite. I will take the line with the intention of winning, and I’ll turn myself inside out to win.”
Last year’s third place finisher Damiano Cunego has been absent during the first two rounds of the Ardennes Classics, instead focusing on the Giro del Trentino, where he won two stages and the overall.
“It seems to me that Cunego is stronger than he was last year, so everybody should keep an eye on him,” Bettini said.
All eyes will be also on Saunier Duval’s 23-year-old Italian Ricardo Ricco, an emerging star in Italy who animated March’s Milan-San Remo and Tirreno-Adriatico. Ricco is backed by fellow Italian teammate Gilberto Simoni.
“Ricco has showed an awful lot this year,” Bettini said. “He’s changed his tone a little bit — at the start of the season he was a little arrogant when speaking of other riders. But now I think that was lack of experience. He lets his legs talk now instead of his mouth, and I think that’s better. But in order to win Liège I think he has to be come a little bit more Belgian.”
Tyler Hamilton became the first and only American to win Liège in 2003. Though Hamilton’s Tinkoff team received an invitation to the event, Hamilton is not racing.Valverde was barely 26 years old when he won his maiden Liège last year, finishing ahead of 2000 and 2002 winner Bettini and Italian climber Damiano Cunego. However Liège has traditionally been one of those races which favors experience over youth.
"The riders to watch out for will be the same as in the two other Ardennes classics," said the Caisse d'Epargne all-rounder.
Though Horner is confident his form his good enough to make the front group again, he has only one day of racing since the March 11-18 Paris-Nice; a knee injury sent him home after just one day at the Tour of the Basque Country, and he also suffered a bout of food poisoning since.
“But the food poisoning kept me thin,” Horner joked. “Not the easiest way to lose weight, but it may have ended up as a blessing in disguise.”
Horner will likely enjoy support from Australian Cadel Evans, who will support the American in trade for Horner’s service at the Tour de France in July. Evans hasn’t ruled his options out for Sunday, but said he is not coming into top form as he did in 2005, when he finished fifth.
“We’ll see how it goes, but if I’m not having a good day I’ll ride for Chris Horner,” Evans said.
Always candid, Horner was happy to detail the lessons he learned last year when he made the front group with Bettini, Cunego, Valverde and Schleck.
“Last year the mistake I made was getting a little eager to make things happen at a race like this rather than sitting back and maybe counting the heads a little more accurately,” Horner said. “I needed to cover the moves with Valverde’s team, they had the numbers. It’s just really hard when you are at the finish. Any rider who attacks and goes up the road is a favorite. It was a small mistake that I made, but when you come down to the finish of a race like Liège-Bastogne-Liège, you have to play the odds and pick the team with the numbers and know that you need to be in the move with one of those guys. I never consciously sat up and said, ‘Okay, that’s the guy to go with.’ I’m one guy from my team there, so you can’t cover everything because there’s only one of you, so you need to cover intelligently. And I was only semi-intelligent.
“I don’t think I was stupid, because every rider going up the road was the best rider in the world. But even if when the best rider in the world is going up the road, if there are still three other riders from another team there, they’re going to bring him back. You’ve got to think a little smarter, but it’s hard to when you’re at that level of racing and you’re going that fast, going up La Redoute and I’m attacking up that historic climb. At the time as soon as I attacked I was thinking, ‘What are you doing? You’re the only guy on your team here, you don’t attack, you follow. You’re at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and you’re going up one of the most famous climbs in the classics.’ Sometimes you get a little carried away with the moment. The only thing for Sunday, I think the form is the same, but the one thing I’d like to do differently is be a little calmer in situations that are going to be as stressful.”
Horner laughed when asked if it bothered him that he wasn’t named on anyone’s list of favorites.
“I’ve never won, so of course I’m not a favorite,” he said. “I wouldn’t name me as a favorite either. But I’ll be there in the final. I’m not saying I’m going to win, but I’ll be disappointed if I’m not in the final. You can’t put me down as a favorite, but I’ll be there at the end.”
Liège facts
Course: 262 km
Flemish name: Luik-Bastonak-Luik
Departure: Liège, 9:50 a.m.
Estimated arrival: Liège, 4:45 p.m.
Feed Zone: Bastogne (111km) and La Gleize (203km).
Major climbs: Stockeu (179.5km), the Haute-Levée (185km), La Redoute (227.5km) and Saint-Nicolas (256.5km). The climbs Km 57.5 Côte de Ny 1.8 km climb to 5.7% Km 83 Côte de la Roche-en-Ardenne 2.8 km climb to 4.9% Km 129 Côte de Saint Roch 0.9 km climb to 12% Km 173 Côte de Wanne 3.1 km climb to 6.1% Km 179.5 Côte de Stockeu 1.1 km climb to 10.5% Km 185 Côte de la Haute-Levée 3.4 km climb to 6% Km 197.5 Côte du Rosier 4.0 km climb to 5.9% Km 210 Côte de la Vecquée 3.1 km climb to 5.9% Km 227.5 Côte de la Redoute 2.1 km climb to 8.4% Km 233 Côte de Sprimont 1.4 km climb to 4.7% Km 248 Côte du Sart-Tilman - Tilff 3.6 km climb to 5.3% Km 256.5 Côte de Saint-Nicolas 1.0 km climb to 11.1%
ProTour teams:Caisse d'EpargneEuskaltelSaunier Duval, PredictorQuick StepAG2RBouygues TelecomCofidisCrédit Agricole, Francaise des JeuxGerolsteinerT-MobileCSCDiscovery ChannelLampre, LiquigasMilramRabobankAstanaInviteesAgritubelBarloworldChocolade JacquesLandbouwkredietTinkoff Favorites: Alejandro Valverde (Spain)Davide Rebellin (Italy), Paolo Bettini (Italy)Damiano Cunego (Italy)Frank Schleck (Luxembourg), Danilo Di Luca (Italy)Riccardo Ricco (Italy)Stefan Schumacher (Germany), Joaquim Rodriguez (Spain)Matthias Kessler (Germany) VeloNews dark horse pick: Chris Horner (USA) Main absentees: Ivan Basso (Italy)Oscar Pereiro (Spain)Tom Boonen (Belgium)Alessandro Ballan (Italy)Stuart O'Grady (AUS)Luca Paolini (Italy)Carlos Sastre (Spain)
Victories by country
Belgium: 57
Italy: 11
Switzerland: 6
France: 5
Basque: 3
Germany: 2
Ireland: 2
Denmark: 1
Spain: 1
United States: 1
Kazakhstan: 1
Luxembourg: 1
Russia: 1 Most wins:Eddy Merckx, five wins between 1969 and 1975 Moreno Argentin, four wins between 1986 and 1991. The past 10 winners;
1997: Michele Bartoli (Italy)
1998: Michele Bartoli (Italy)
1999: Frank Vandenbroucke (Belgium)
2000: Paolo Bettini (Italy)
2001: Oscar Camenzind (Switzerland)
2002: Paolo Bettini (Italy)
2003: Tyler Hamilton (USA)
2004: Davide Rebellin (Italy)
2005: Alexandre Vinokourov (Kazakhstan)
2006: Alejandro Valverde (Spain) Top 10 riders from 2006:
1. Alejandro Valverde (Sp), Caisse d'Épargne-Illes Balears, 262km in 6:21:32 (41.202 kph)
2. Paolo Bettini (I), Quick Step-Innergetic
3. Damiano Cunego (I), Lampre-Fondital
4. Patrik Sinkewitz (G), T-Mobile
5. Michael Boogerd (Nl), Rabobank
6. Miguel Martin Perdiguero (Sp), Phonak
7. Frank Schleck (Luxembourg), CSC
8. Chris Horner (USA), Davitamon, all s.t.
9. Danilo Di Luca (I), Liquigas, at 0:04
10. Ivan Basso (I), CSC, at 0:07.
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