The Duel

Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel: two young men with a rendezvous this Sunday at ‘la Doyenne’ as the 258.5-kilometer Liège-Bastogne-Liégeclassic race is known. Both former winners, Pogačar in 2021 and Evenepoel in 2022. Two men who won 31 races between them in 2022, two men who’ve not been on the same starting line since September 25th of last year. One the current World Professional Champion, the other a Tour de France winner currently on a winning rampage not seen sincethe days of Eddy Merckx. Two very different men, two very different approaches to the sport.

 World Champion Evenepoel is finally, like Zeus descending from Mount Olympus, abandoning his North African altitude training camp where he’s been since the beginning of March - having left only to race the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya - and is ready for his assault on “the most beautiful classic”, and his main objective for the season, the Giro d’Italia which begins May 6th. The 23-year-old Belgian is accustomed and in fact seems to enjoy the solitude of life on top of a barren, extinct volcano. At the tender age of 11, Evenepoel, then a huge soccer talent, was shipped off from Belgian to live in Holland, all to better hone his skills. That’s a tough age to be alone like that but he embraced the lessons, became self-sufficient and accustomed to a life where social contacts are suppressed to forge physical dominance. He is a master of data, wattage, and nutrition, and how to translate it all into performance as we saw with his measured and calculated win at last year’s Vuelta a Espãna. At 5’6” and 135 pounds, Evenepoel is in fact quite muscular which allows him to both climb and fly on the flats, especially in solo efforts. He’s raced 21 times this year, winning seven races including two Young Rider and one Points classifications.

 Pogačar, two-inches taller and 10-pounds heavier, seems a very different, much more social animal, one entranced by the history and traditions of the sport and in making his own mark on them. Raised in a tight-knit club atmosphere, the Slovenian keeps close contact with his roots, even racing the Tour of Slovenia last year, in a less-than-ideal Tour de France preparation. He races on instinct, his nice guy demeanor covering a feral quality that allows him to sense moments of weakness in his opponents, ones which he exploits to devastating effect.

 Tadej Pogačar is looking to close his rampage of a Classic’s season with his third consecutive win in the Ardennes races (the three concluding Classics of the spring, known for tough climbs) after his wins at the Amstel Gold Race and la Flèche Wallonne on top of his stunning Tour of Flanders victory. He’s raced 19-times in 2023, winning - get this - 15 races and classifications including the overall in the two stage races he’s done, Paris-Nice and Vuelta a Andalucia. The world of cycling is really, really waiting for this one, a true showdown between great champions.

 Of course, things don’t always go to plan, there will be 23 other teams on the start line, all with their own desires to win. But to do so they’ll have to escape the clutches of Pogačar’s UAE-Team Emirates, a squad on fire with all the wins this year, and what should be a revived Soudal-Quickstep team, who finally have, with Evenepoel, a winner to back. But should it indeed come down to the duo, the question is: can Evenepoel resist the explosive surges that the Slovenian has used to destroy the competition this year? I’ve observed that when Pogačar attacks, as in Flanders with van der Poel and at the Amstel with the plucky Irishman Ben Healy, he opens a gap of 15”-20” then holds it all the way to the finish line. He doesn’t in fact gain on the chasers - and in the case of Healy was losing time until some divine intervention in the form of shelter from the Race Director’s car opened his gap back up. Evenepoel, as stated before, is a master of the solo effort. He may not have the explosivity of the Slovenian but should close any gaps that may have opened.

 The peloton will hit the Côte de La Redoute at kilometer-224, the 1.6-kilometer, 8.9% hill that traditionally servers as the launching pad for the strong men, followed by a series of four similarly tough climbs until the finish. Those ending 34-kilometers may very well provide us with the best racing ever seen in this, the new golden age of the Classics. Pick your pony.