Astana’s Maxim Iglinskiy won the final of the three Ardennes Classics cycling races, Liege-Bastogne-Liege by 20 seconds over Liquigas’s Vincenzo Nibali.
Nibali made a brave attack on the descent of the Côte de La Roche aux Faucons, 20 km from the finish line, and very nearly pulled off the win; Iglinksky, who launched his own attack 10 km out, caught the Liquigas rider 1300 meters from the finish line. Nibali, spent from his efforts, struggled to salvage second place while the Astana rider cruised to victory.
“I have raced Liège seven times and I have finally won,” Iglinsky told velonews.com. “It was a surprise that I could catch Nibali. I could see he was suffering and I attacked him because I could see he was finished. I just buried myself and I won.”
“It’s the biggest win of my career,” he continued. “[Teammate Alexander Vinokourov] called me this morning and told me I could win this race, but that I had to try and get into a breakaway.”
Astana’s Enrico Gasparotto, who won the first of the Classics, Amstel Gold, on Monday, finished third in Liege, outsprinting the rest of the chase group which struggled and failed to catch Nibali and Iglinskiy.
Joaquim Rodriguez of Katusha, who won Flèche-Wallonnne Wednesday and really wanted the double win, attacked with Iglinskiy halfway between the final climbs but couldn’t hang on up the slopes of the very steep Côte de Saint-Nicolas. He finished 15th.
BMC’s Philippe Gilbert, who won all there Ardennes Classics in 2011, struggled on the final climb and ended up 16th.
Next: Long, Hard, Cold and Wet
Liege-Bastogne-Liege completes the Ardennes Classics, three one-day courses in the Netherlands and Belgium raced in a a single week. Starting with Amstel Gold and then Flèche Wallone,-Bastogne-Liege completes 608 km of cycling in seven days. At 257.5 km, Liege-Bastogn-Liege longest of the Ardennes Classic; it is also the oldest—it was first raced in 1892 and became a professional race in 1894.
The route contains 11 categorized climbs. The steepest are the Côte de Sainte-Roch at 11 percent grade, and Côte de Stockeu at 12.2. The final three climbs—Côte de La Redoute, Côte de la Roche aux Faucions, and Côte de Saint Nicolas, range from 8.8 percent to 9.3 percent average incline are famous for the numerous attacks launched there.
In 2011 Philippe Gilbert, now riding for BMC, won all three races, but that is a rarity. Amstel Gold is long but lacks very steep climbs; Flèche-Wallonne contains some very steep climbs including the Mur de Huys with sections at 25 percent; Liege-Bastogne-Liege is both long and filled with painful climbs. Not only does each race favor a different style of rider, each one demands a draining effort. Not many riders can recover enough in a few days to be ready to go all-out for each.
Sunday’s race started in miserable conditions: rainy, with the temperature around 45 degrees. The rian came and went, and the day finished in sunshine, but the riders were cold and wet from start to finish.
A group of three riders—Dario Cataldo (Omega Pharma-Quick Step,) Simon Geschke (Argos,) and Kevin Ista (Accent Jobs) escaped 50 km into the race. After 10 km they were joined by the trio of Reinier Honig (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony,) Gregory Habeaux (Accent-Willems,) and Alessandro Bazzana (Team Type 1-Sanofi.)
These riders opened a gap of seven minutes. With 80 km left to go, Simon Geschke crashed and lost contact with the leaders; the remaining five pressed on, chased by Pierre Rolland (Europcar,) David Lelay (Saur-Sojasun,) and Vasili Kiryienka (Movistar.) The two groups merged, but soon started losing riders as the kilometers and the climbs added up.
When the group hit the Côte de la Redoute (2 km at 8.8 percent average grade) Rolland and Kiryienka took off on their own. They managed to stay away until the Côte de la Roche aux Faucons, 20 km from the finish line. Here the peloton caught the escapees, and Vincenzo Nibali moved to the head of the peloton on the climb.
The Astana rider pushed on over the crest and used his descending skills to open a gap which the disorganized peloton could not close. Maxim Inglinskiy and Joachim Rodriguez (Katusha) followed; the Katusha rider wanted to add to his win at Flèche-Wallone
A small group set off in pursuit: Enrico Gasparotto (Astana,) Bauke Mollema (Rabobabnk,) Philippe Gilbert (BMC,) Daniel Martin (Garmin-Barracuda,) Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), Robert Kiserlovski (Astana), but everyone was tired and no one organized a concerted chase. Martin and Rolland soon attacked this group, seeing that it was not fast enough to catch the leaders, but the pair alone didn’t have the legs either.
Six km from the finish line Iglinskiy saw Rodriguez weaken and pulled away; then it was a matter of how long the tiring Nibali could keep pushing and how fast Iglinskiy could chase.
The Liquigas rider couldn’t hold of Iglinskiy, but at least managed to earn second for his effort, beating the chasers across the line by 15 seconds.
| Liege-Bastogne-Liege Cycling Classic | |||
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| Rider | Team | Time |
| 1 | Maxim Iglinskiy | Astana | 6:43:52 |
| 2 | Vincenzo Nibali | Liquigas-Cannondale | +0:21 |
| 3 | Enrico Gasparotto | Astana | +0:36 |
| 4 | Thomas Voeckler | Europcar |
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| 5 | Daniel Martin | Garmin Barracuda |
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| 6 | Bauke Mollema | Rabobank |
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| 7 | Samuel Sánchez | Euskaltel-Euskadi |
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| 8 | Michele Scarponi | Lampre-ISD |
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| 9 | Ryder Hesjedal | Garmin-Barracuda |
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| 10 | Jelle Vanendert | Lotto Belisol |
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