Sunday, April 27 marked the arrival of the next race on the menu for many professional cyclists. Liege-Bastogne-Liege – the fourth Monument race and the final Ardennes Classic of the 2025 season was greatly anticipated by cycling enthusiasts around the world.
The route of Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025 challenged the riders to a battle on a 252-kilometer route from Liege to Bastogne, and back. While most of the race would be contested in hilly terrain, race route designers from legendary race organizer A.S.O. had decided to honor the historic race by adding an additional challenge by reintroducing the Col de Haussire (Stele Criquielion) – known as the toughest hill of Belgium. This year’s race route included eleven categorized climbs, including the legendary Cote de la Redoute.
As winning a Monument race or a Grand Tour represents the pinnacle of cycling achievement, the start list for Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025 (also known as La Doyenne) was impressive and featured many popular riders, including Olympic Champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep), World Champion Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) – who had won Wednesday’s La Fleche Wallonne, Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) – who had shown promising form in recent races, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) – who had won Amstel Gold Race but crashed out of La Fleche Wallonne, Enric Mas (Movistar Team), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Magnus Sheffield (Ineos-Grenadiers), Alex Aranburu (Cofidis Team), and Team Jayco-Alula’s Ben O’Connor.
It took approximately twenty-five kilometers of fast racing on the roads of Liege and in the Belgian countryside, before a ten-man group launched an attack from the peloton and established a durable gap.
The group included Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Eduardo Sepulveda (Team Lotto), Hannes Wilksch (Tudor Pro Cycling Team), Stan van Tricht (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Sakarias Koller Loland (Uno-X Mobility), Kamiel Bonneu (Intermarche-Wanty), Rayan Boulahoite (Team TotalEnergies), Valentin Retailleau (Team TotalEnergies), and a Wagner Bazin WB duo featuring Ceriel Desal and Henri-Francois Renard-Haquin.
The ten breakaway optimists in front were later joined by Mathis le Berre (Arkea B & B Hotels) and Johan Meens of Team Wagner Bazin WB and the twelve-man group pressed on while hoping to form a viable gap, which could be used as a promotional opportunity for the smaller teams – or as a steppingstone to success in the race finale.
While riders from UAE Team Emirates were controlling the pace at the front of the main peloton, the time advantage of the front group had increased to approximately six minutes after sixty kilometers of fast racing. But 190 challenging kilometers through hilly terrain remained on the day’s racing menu.
Riders from Soudal-QuickStep and Bahrain-Victorious had joined the chase effort at the front of the main peloton when 165 kilometers of the race remained.
The riders in Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025 were slowly approaching the Col de Haussire, reintroduced as part of the race route for this year’s race and known as the toughest hill of Belgium. Col de Haussire was 3.9 kilometers long and featured an average gradient of 7.2 percent. The front group still featured twelve riders with 140 kilometers left, but its time advantage had been reduced to 05:30 minutes.
The twelve front men fought hard on the steep and narrow roads of Col de Haussire while encircled by the beautiful Spring colors of the fresh new leaves on the trees of the surrounding Forests.
While Renard-Haquin was the first rider to reach the summit of the Col de Haussire climb, Bob Jungels attacked optimistically from the main peloton on the same hill for Ineos-Grenadiers, hoping to animate the race further and make watching the race more enjoyable to spectators along the route and at home. Teammate Tobias Foss of Norway later joined Jungels in his attacking efforts.
Foss and Jungels pressed on in the following kilometers – as did the other riders in the race. With 100 exciting and annihilating kilometers left of this year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the front breakaway group had an advantage of just 02:37 minutes over the main peloton, while the Ineos-Grenadiers chase duo was in between the two groups, 01:45 minutes behind the front men and approximately a minute ahead of the race favorites in the main peloton.
88 kilometers from the finish line in Liege, Cote de Wanne was next on the climbing menu for the riders in the race. Riders from UAE Team Emirates were leading the chase effort in the main peloton, with Tadej Pogacar clearly visible in his rainbow-striped World Champion outfit.
The main peloton caught Foss and Jungels 82 kilometers from the finish line. The Ineos-Grenadiers duo had failed to make the leap to the front group and had likely not had time to enjoy the beautiful and 20 degrees Celsius warm Spring weather.
A steep hill section caused a shakeup in the team, when Jack Haig attacked from the breakaway group. Le Berre, Loland, Sepulveda, and Boulahoite formed a chase group, while other breakaway companions decided to wait for the main peloton. The four chasers caught Haig on the Cote de la Haute-Levee.
Riders from Lidl-Trek and EF Education-EasyPost joined the chase effort at the front of the main peloton. 65 kilometers remained and all main race favorites were on high alert as attacks could be launched at any time. Meanwhile, four riders remained in front with an advantage of 42 seconds.
The remaining riders from the original breakaway group were reeled in by the peloton.
Forty kilometers of this year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege remained, and multiple teams were fighting for positions at the front of the peloton. Ineos-Grenadiers, Lidl-Trek, UAE Team Emirates, and Bahrain Victorious riders were all active. EF Education-EasyPost increased the pace further on a descent while working for their team captains American Neilson Powless and Irishman Ben Healy.
Remco Evenepoel was spotted far back in the peloton when 35 kilometers remained. The Belgian race favorite had to spend valuable energy to fight his way back to the front of the peloton, where other race favorites were located.
Tadej Pogacar attacked solo from the front of the peloton on the Cote de La Redoute. The World Champion immediately created a significant gap. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) and EF Education-EasyPost riders tried to respond while there was still time as did the ever-popular Julian Alaphilippe for Tudor Pro Cycling Team.
Pogacar was the first rider to reach the summit of Cote de La Redoute and he was also solo in front when thirty kilometers remained. Pidcock and Healy were chasing twenty seconds behind, while Ciccone and Alaphilippe were chasing 38 seconds behind the Slovenian race leader. Evenepoel was chasing more than a minute behind.
Alaphilippe and Ciccone joined Healy and Pidcock, but the quartet was already thirty-six seconds behind the frontman. They were 46 seconds back with the 25 kilometers left.
Cote des Forges was next on the racing menu, but the hill caused little change to the race situation.
Defending Liege-Bastogne-Liege winner Tadej Pogacar was still able to push enough energy into his pedals to keep the chase quartet at bay when fifteen kilometers remained. At this point Pogacar had a lead of 01:15 minutes and despite featuring strong riders Pidcock, Alaphilippe, Healy, and Ciccone, the chase group was unable to make the leap to the World Champion.
Pogacar now reached the steep Cote de la Roche Faucons hill, which featured climbing sections of up to fifteen percent. Ciccone increased the pace in the chase quartet on the climb and only Healy was able to hang onto the Italian strongman. Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock and Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe were unable to follow. Meanwhile, Olympic Champion Remco Evenepoel got dropped from the reduced main peloton group.
Pogacar reached the summit of Faucons with an advantage of 01:10 minutes. Healy was looking very strong and persistent in the chasing duo.
Ever-impressing frontman Tadej continued to increase his advantage and had a lead of 01:30 minutes over Healy and Ciccone seven kilometers from the finish line in Liege. The remaining race favorites and outsiders were now two minutes back while forming the reduced main peloton group.
No rider proved able to follow Slovenian strongman Tadej Pogacar in today’s race. Pogacar was the first rider to cross the finish line in Liege and crossed the finish line as winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025 for UAE Team Emirates.
Ben Healy and Giulio Ciccone were the next riders to approach the finish line. Healy opened his sprint first and had contributed a lot to the chase effort, but Ciccone overtook the Irish rider to finish second for his Lidl-Trek team, while Healy completed the race podium for EF Education-EasyPost.
“It feels great to finish my first part of the season this way. The whole season so far went perfect for me and I’m so happy,” race winner Pogacar told Roadcycling.com before the podium celebrations.
“It was not a plan to attack where I did, but I saw some competitors lacked teammates, so I just committed and I had good legs, so I just continued to the finish line, and I am so happy. I noticed at some point all the Soudal-QuickStep riders disappeared from the front and this was also a good motivation for me to press the go button,” Pogacar explained to Roadcycling.com.
Simone Velasco finished fourth, while Thibau Nys took fifth for Lidl-Trek. Daniel Martinez was seventh for Red Bull – Bora – Hansgrohe, Axel Laurance was eighth for Ineos-Grenadiers, Thomas Pidcock finished ninth for Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, while Neilson Powless completed the top ten for EF Education-EasyPost.
Stay tuned to Roadcycling.com for complete coverage from the 2025 professional cycling season.
