“It was not a plan to attack at La Redoute" - Tadej Pogacar almost accidently soft pedals away from rivals at Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025

Many experts, fans and even fellow riders had predicted Tadej Pogacar to launch a big, potentially race-winning attack on La Redoute at Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2025 and that is exactly what happened. As it turned out though, that might not have been the world champion's initial plan when he came to the front on the climb.

“It feels great to finish the first part of the season like this,” reflected a beaming Pogacar in his post-race interview, having added a landmark 9th Monument win of his career to his palmares with this latest display of his brilliance. “I am just happy that the whole season so far went perfect."

When asked about the La Redoute attack however, Pogacar came up with a somewhat eyebrow raising response. “It was not a plan to attack at La Redoute, but the pace was so hard before that, and I saw that a number of teams didn’t have teammates any more. So I said to myself I would test my legs a little bit and see if I get a gap on the top. I would decide if I would continue or not," he recounts of the seated acceleration that saw the UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader breeze away from all his rivals with ease.

Because of the fact he summited the climb all alone and with clear distance from his rivals, Pogacar was almost forced to then carry on his solo attack. As shown many times in the past however, this is very rarely a problem for the all-conquering Slovenian superstar. “Then I just committed, because I had good legs also on the second climb after La Redoute," he concludes his recap. "So I could go to the finish. I am super happy.”

In the end, Pogacar's winning margin was 1:03 from the rest of the podium, led home by Giulio Ciccone and Ben Healy.