The podium of the 2024 Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Romain Bardet and two aliens. 👨👽👽 🥇 🇸🇮 Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) 🏆 🥈 🇫🇷 Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL) 🥉 🇳🇱 Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) #LBL
"I feel like I've been chasing all day" - Mathieu van der Poel snatches Liege-Bastogne-Liege podium at the very last
CyclingMonday, 22 April 2024 at 10:13
Once again proving he never gives up, Mathieu van der Poel's frantic chasing towards the end of Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2024 was rewarded by a spot on the final podium alongside Tadej Pogacar and Romain Bardet.
"I don't really know how I got here on stage. I feel like I've been chasing all day," reflected the world champion post-race to Sporza, having been on the back foot relatively early on after getting caught behind a crash in the peloton. "I was taking off my leg warmers and gloves, but then they fell and the entire road became blocked. At that moment I thought that we would not get back into the races, but in the end, we succeeded."
With Pogacar a clear winner, van der Poel doesn't believe that early chase made much difference to the final result however. "There was some decompression after the past few weeks, especially Flanders and Roubaix. But even with the legs I had there, I couldn't have done anything against Pogacar," he explains. "So now I'm very happy to be on the podium here, because I didn't have the prospect of it for long. I only believed in it when I joined the group for third place, even though my legs weren't very good anymore. I wanted to end my classic spring on a good note and I succeeded."
"I now understand what they mean when they say that the cobblestone and hill classics can't be combined. We have to be realistic and even with the best legs I won't be able to follow Pogacar on La Redoute. That is food for thought for the future," van der Poel concludes ominously. "Maybe I don't focus on it anymore. Only time will tell."
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- I counted 16 riders under 24 out of 43 that started. Once was only 16 ! Two of the top riders are Zoe and Schreiber and both under 23 yet that have done 50 min races in the past with the elites so I think it's just bad clock management. Let them race 50 freakin' minutes! One more lap could have made a big dffierence most times in the podium and winner.frieders319-11-2024
- He needs to finish out his contract and then go hit MTB and Cross/Gravel really hard, that's where his heart is.awp18-11-2024
- Pidcock is starting to sound like Froome now.Sweep18-11-2024
- I think this was because there were junior women in the race. If a race has junior women am pretty sure it has to be less than 45 minutes. I believe a rule is coming in for next season that will fine organisers that don't put on a junior women's race a fine equivalent to the prize money. So fingers crossed we should see more longer elite and junior women's races from next season.NorrisHippocampe18-11-2024
- Of course he CAN. Big salary in cycling is not when you win but when they talk about you (and your team / sponsors). For every news about Jonas, MVdP or Wout there are 10 times more(!) news about Pidcock (like everyday for last 2 months?). Since cycling is advertising sport not competitive sport (in terms of from money comes from) Pidcock is winner and GOAT - change my mind. ;-)averagecyclist18-11-2024
- Why do the women CXs keep getting short changed with the length of theor races? They could have easily done another lap to put them at 50 minutes which is their time limit. Yet another CX race where they fail to reach this when they had a chance to. Come on ... the math isn't that hard to figure out lap times and divide into 50 min!frieders318-11-2024
- All pro cyclists are massively underpaid! The amount of riding and physical exertion they put their bodies through is crazy compared to other sports. I can't think of any other sport where you are physically active at a very high level of power output for hours on end each day.Pogboom17-11-2024
- When I was working for Starkist/Heinz my manager quit. So the next week my group was put under another manager. During our first meeting he asked if there was anything we needed to tell him. I said that I would be out the following week on vacation. He said "I don't know if I can let you go on vacation". I replied, "You can't tell if I can go. You can only tell me if I can come back".Sweep17-11-2024
- :-)Sweep17-11-2024
- What a mess there :-)
DareDevil17-11-2024