Mathieu van der Poel (29) wants to win his third monument of 2024 on Sunday in Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Based on previous results in La Doyenne However, the Dutchman’s chances of victory are small.
1. A never scored hat trick
Mathieu van der Poel has already played almost all the songs on the set list of his spring concert. Resulting in deafening applause, after the double Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. On Sunday it is time for a final encore, in Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The Dutchman wants to end his historic performance there with a bang. If he also pocketed that monument, it would be unique in recent cycling history.
Only one rider has ever won three of the five biggest classics in one year: Eddy Merckx – who else. De Kannibaal even did it four times, including twice in the preseason, in 1969 and 1975. With the same series each time: victory in Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, each time combined with a second place in Paris- Roubaix.
Realizing the double in the two cobblestone classics La Doyenne However, Merckx has never succeeded in claiming credit for his name – as Mathieu van der Poel will attempt on Sunday. No rider has ever succeeded in this, although Raymond Impanis (win in the Ronde and in Roubaix, second in Liège in 1954) and Roger De Vlaeminck (win in the Ronde and in Roubaix, fourth in Liège in 1977) also came in the neighbourhood. Just like Sean Kelly in 1984, but with a different combination: second in the Tour, victory in Roubaix and Liège.
🏛️S’il remporte #LBL ce dimanche, @mathieuvdpoel the first driver of Eddy Merckx in 1975 with 3 monuments during this time.
🏛️If he wins in Liège on Sunday, he could become the first rider since Eddy Merckx in 1975 to win 3 monuments in the same season. pic.twitter.com/plz779buhh
— Liège-Bastogne-Liège (@LiegeBastogneL) April 15, 2024
2. Also recently a rare successful combination
In Merckx’s time there was no specialization, with a focus on cobblestone classics or climbing classics. That has been the case over the last three decades, and certainly in recent years. Even riding the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège is rare, let alone finishing in the top ten in those three monuments.
Only three riders who finished among the top ten in the biggest Walloon one-day classic last year also took part in the Tour three weeks earlier: Tom Pidcock finished second in Liège and 53e in Oudenaarde, Valentin Madouas finished fifth in Liège and gave up in the Ronde, and Tiesj Benoot combined a seventh place in Liège with a thirteenth place in Flanders Most Beautiful. However, none of those three were at the start in Paris-Roubaix. Even more: not a single rider from the top thirty of Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2023 also crossed the stones of the Hell of the North.
The successful combination was also rare in previous years: in 2022 Dylan Teuns finished sixth in the Tour and in Liège. In between, he deliberately gave up early in Paris-Roubaix. Only two riders achieved an even better result in one of the two cobblestone monuments and in La Doyenne. Coincidentally, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel sneezed. The Kempen native finished second in Hel and third in Liège in 2022, after missing the Tour of Flanders due to a corona infection. The last rider who reached the top three in those two monuments in the even more distant past? Adrie van der Poel in 1986, he finished third in Roubaix and second in Liège.
In the 2020 corona season, with a changed and postponed calendar to the autumn, son Mathieu also combined a sixth place in Liège-Bastogne-Liège with a later win in the Tour of Flanders. Paris-Roubaix was not ridden that year.
Also significant: the (for now) two most successful cobblestone specialists of this century, Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, have never participated in Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Johan Museeuwthe best cobblestone rider of the 1990s/early 2000s, was at the start seven times, but did not get further than sixth place in 1997.
3. Preparation with a stage race (almost always) necessary
Mathieu van der Poel has ridden six one-day classics so far, not a single round before or in between. This is at odds with the preparation that is usually necessary to shine on the long slopes of Liège-Bastogne-Liège. This requires a lot of uphill competition kilometers in your legs, and therefore a stage race at the end of March or beginning/mid-April.
Since 2000 (excluding the 2020 corona season), almost all winners of La Doyenne in preparation for the Tour of Catalonia, the Tour of the Basque Country, the Tour of Trentino (the current Tour of the Alps) or the Criterium International.
Only three LBL winners did not start in those rounds and first started part of the Flemish spring, including the Tour of Flanders (but without Paris-Roubaix): Maxim Iglinsky in 2012, Philippe Gilbert in 2011 and Paolo Bettini in 2002 Only Gilbert also finished in the top ten of the Tour in his super year of 2011, ninth.
In 2011 @PhilippeGilbert triumphed in Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Gilbert convincingly beat the Schleck brothers in a sprint and with his victory in La Doyenne he conquered his second monument at that moment @NatLot_Belgie @LotNat_Belgique pic.twitter.com/pPfgPtMZz1— Lotto Dstny (@lotto_dstny) October 4, 2020
The last, even bigger exception to that rule was Frank Vandenbroucke in 1999, who finished second in the Tour and seventh in Roubaix before his win in Liège.
4. Heavyweights no longer score in Liège
The fact that riders can now very rarely score on the cobblestones and on the Ardennes slopes has not only to do with the preparation, but also with their weight. The last rider weighing less than 70 kilos to win Paris-Roubaix was Servais Knaven (69 kilos) in 2001. Lightweights who won the Tour of Flanders are also exceptional: this century only Nick Nuyens (68 kilos, 2011) , Alberto Bettiol (69 kilos, 2019) and Tadej Pogacar (67 kilos, 2023).
You see the opposite picture Liège-Bastogne-Liège, a race with more than 4,200 meters of elevation – comparable to a tough mountain stage in a Grand Tour. In the 2023 top ten, only two riders weighing more than 70 kilos finished in the top ten: Valentin Madouas (71 kilos, fifth) and Tiesj Benoot (71 kilos, seventh).
Even in previous editions, the number of relative heavyweights in the top ten was never higher than two or three, including Benoot who finished in the top ten twice more. The heaviest riders were, again not coincidentally, Wout van Aert (78 kilos, third in 2022) and Mathieu van der Poel (74 kilos, sixth in 2020).
They weighed no less than 14 and 10 kilos more than the average of the top five in the last five editions (64 kilos), since the finish was moved from Ans to the center of Liège in 2019. Even in the ten previous editions (2009-2018), the average of the first five was never higher than 67 kilos.
(read more below the graph)
La Doyenne Winning was not even possible for riders weighing over 70 kilos. The last real heavyweight to triumph in Liège? Dirk De Wolf in 1992, who said he weighed 78 kilos at the time. And it was able to withstand the very bad ‘wolf weather’, as he called it, in that edition.
(read more below the graph)
No chance against Pogacar
Conclusion: against Tadej Pogacar, the top favorite for next Sunday, Mathieu van der Poel doesn’t seem to have a chance. The Slovenian is, besides Philippe Gilbert, the only rider to have won the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia this century. Gilbert also had to gain a number of kilos before he could win in the Tour of Flanders, seven years after his last victory in Lombardy. Pogacar is able to do that in the same year.
He also has many climbing kilometers in his legs (he won the Tour of Catalonia by force majeure and then went on an altitude training course) and weighs 67 kilos, 7 kilos less than Van der Poel. Especially on the two judges in the final, the Côte de la Redoute (with a climbing time of more than 4 minutes) and the Roche aux Faucons (with a climbing time of 3.5 to 4 minutes), those kilos will weigh extra heavily on the Dutchman. Also because Pogacar’s UAE team will make the race extra hard on the previous climbs to wear Van der Poel down.
7 reasons why Van der Poel might win
1. Because he is such an exceptional rider that all the above conditions apply less to him.
2. Because he already finished sixth in Liège in 2020, the day after he had wasted a lot of energy with a 50 kilometer solo in the BinckBank Tour. Four years later, Van der Poel is a lot stronger.
3. Because he has been more active in recent months from his new home base in Moreira, Spain has trained for longer uphill efforts, making its ‘five-minute value’ wattages higher than ever. If that is not enough to follow Pogacar, or other climbers, on the Roche aux Faucons, he can possibly return in the last 12 descending/flat kilometers to the finish in Liège. Although his deficit may not be too great.
4. Because he has had an atypical program with only six days of racing, albeit six tough one-day races. His energy tank should still be relatively full.
Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar.
IMAGE/Sirotti
5. Because on Sunday, like in the Flèche Wallonne, the weather will probably be bad and cold again, and he can withstand it better than the lightweights – although Pogacar also thrives in that weather. Unlike other favorites, Van der Poel did not suffer from the bad weather during the Flèche Wallonne, where he did not start.
6. Because former winners such as Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel continue falls not participate. The competition, besides Pogacar, is less fierce. Van der Poel can therefore tailor his match to the Slovenian – although that can also be a disadvantage.
7. Because he is very focused on looking forward to Liège and the duel with Pogacar, which may have been less the case last Sunday in the Amstel Gold Race.
