Tadej Pogačar showed Mathieu van der Poel his back and dominated the Lutych-Bastogne-Lutych cycling monument

Tadej Pogačar once again rode to another triumph at the cycling monument. For the second time in his career he conquered Lutych-Bastogne-Lutych. He won again, as he has been doing all season. He rode and rode alone to another triumph.

Pogačar for van der Poel

Only two names were bandied about before the race. Tadej Pogačar vs Mathieu van der Poel. The Slovenian cyclist has a completely different calendar this year than his biggest rivals. Unlike Jonas Vingegaard, he also plans to race the Giro d’Italia.

However, Vingegaard’ s start in this year’s Tour de Farnce is quite uncertain, due to a nasty crash in the Tour of the Basque Country. Pogačar has been picking up his form in a high mountain camp in Spain and arrived in very good spirits, with the knowledge that he is ready to win.

Missing from the start was the winner of the previous two editions, Remco Evenepoel, who also sustained serious injuries in the same race as Vingegaard. So in this year’s edition, it was the phenomenal Slovenian climber vs the king of technique van der Poel that was expected to clash.

The more than 250km long 100+ year old classic race offered 11 hilly climbs with an elevation gain of up to 4,100 metres. And it is clearly the most hilly monument on this season’s itinerary, which was just about to play into Pogačar’s hands. But Mathieu van der Poel wanted to technically upset the Slovenian.

Pogačar again showed dominance

Just as Remco Evenepoel dominated last year, Pogačar dominated virtually the same place. Already 34km from the finish on the key Cote de la Redoute climb, he put the pedal to the metal and went on a solo breakaway. And as has been his custom this season, no one caught his entrance and the Slovenian rode solo to victory.

Even a strategist like van der Poel couldn’t do anything about it, at the finish he was happy to take the final third place. Pogačar won by more than 1:30 minutes. This season he has already scored 7 firsts in just 10 race days!

This is the second time Pogačar has won here, the first time in 2021. Of course, he also knows how much this race hurts. Last year he broke his wrist here and it severely disrupted his preparation for the Tour de France, where he eventually finished in second place.

Lutych-Bastogne-Lutych (WorldTour) – 254.5 km

• 1. Tadej Pogačar (Slovi./UAE Emirates), 2nd Roman Bardet (Fr./dsm-firmenich) -1:39, 3rd Mathieu van der Poel (Niz./Alpecin) -2:02

Source: UCI, Cycling News