Slovenia's cycling superstar wins second Walloon classic
Slovenia's cycling superstar Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates XRG) has won the one-day classic La Flèche Wallonne, crushing his rivals on the famous final Mur de Huy climb to claim his second victory at this prestigious race after 2023.
Racing in the event for the sixth time, the world's no. 1 cyclist overcame all rivals in rainy conditions on the 205.2 km route between Ciney and Huy. He finished ten seconds ahead of Frenchman Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) and 12 seconds ahead of Britain's Thomas Pidcock (Q36.5), CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.
As is tradition, the race was decided on the final ascent of the Mur de Huy, about a kilometre-long "wall" with an average gradient of around 10%. Pogačar's teammates prepared the ground for his attack, and the 26-year-old launched 400 metres from the finish line, immediately dropping all his rivals.
No one could match the world champion and three-time Tour de France winner by the summit, where he had built a sizeable advantage over Vauquelin and Pidcock. He left Belgium's Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step), one of the other main favourites in the race, 16 seconds behind in ninth place.
"It's a really great feeling to win again here, on this tough but beautiful final climb," Pogačar said after the race. "As a cyclist you don't like it so much, and today the weather wasn't the best, so it was a really tough race, and it means a lot to pull it off with a win."
"We raced really well together as a team, and we stuck to the plan, but it was a hard race and the guys had super good legs. More or less we have the same team on Sunday, and I think we can do a great race again and try to win there as well," he added with a view towards the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic scheduled for the end of this week.
This marks Pogačar's 94th career victory and his sixth this season, following two stage wins and the overall classification at the UAE Tour, plus wins at the one-day classic Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders monument.
Two other Slovenians competed in the race - Gal Glivar (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Domen Novak, who rode as a domestique for Pogačar on the Emirates squad.
