UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad announced for Liège-Bastogne-Liège, as Ardennes Classics come towards a close
News | Team – 23rd April 2025
Three weeks after the last of his eight Monument victories to date, Tadej Pogačar will lead UAE Team Emirates-XRG at this weekend’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège in Belgium. The grand old race will round out this year’s spring Classics and see the world’s best go head-to-head once more before attention turns to the Grand Tour season.
With a second-place finish at the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday, Pogačar showed himself up for the fight in the Ardennes, with some of the region’s toughest climbs to come over the double-header of La Flèche Wallonne and the Monument known as La Doyenne.
Although sitting as the final race of the week, Liège-Bastogne-Liège is likely to be the most hotly anticipated, with the 133-year-old race proving the oldest of cycling’s five Monuments. Over the years, Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates-XRG have won two editions, with victories in 2021 and 2024 serving as revenge for a third place in 2020 and the season-altering crash in 2023.
This time around, the Slovenian has enjoyed an uninterrupted Classics campaign that has seen him win Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders, adding to podium finishes at Milano-Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix and the Amstel Gold Race. The world champion took the cycling world by storm in finishing second at Paris-Roubaix on debut, but he will be on more familiar terrain in La Doyenne.
Taking in 4,400m of climbing across 251.8km, the route for Liège-Bastogne-Liège remains the same from recent years, with nine of the eleven categorised climbs falling within the final 100km of racing. In days gone by, it was the Côte de Stockeu which would be most feared by all, with Eddy Merckx making this particular climb his playground in his heyday.
However, there has been a shift towards using La Redoute as a launchpad for solo victories over the past three editions, with Remco Evenepoel using the 1.6km climb to full effect in 2022 and 2023, before Pogačar followed suit last season. With an average gradient of 9.4%, La Redoute is more than hard enough to create a race-winning move, with only 34km to ride from its summit to the finish in Liège.
Should the preceding climbs not prove decisive, there will no doubt be attacks flying from all angles on the final categorised ascent, the Roche-aux-Faucons. Extending for 1.3km at 11%, the Roche-aux-Faucons is where Pogačar went clear along with four other riders in 2021, before winning a five-up sprint to take what was his first Monument win.
Now sitting on eight Monument victories, the world champion is looking forward to another couple of one-day showdowns before all attention turns to this summer’s Tour de France preparation.
Pogačar: “I’ve enjoyed this Classics campaign a lot so far. I came into this period with a lot of goals and ambitions and there are still two left, with the biggest of them next Sunday. The most suited race for me is probably Liege so I’m really looking forward to it in particular, but every race is important. I’ll aim for a couple of easier days now and open the legs up again in Fleche – Wallonne on the Mur de Huy. I think things are on track for a good race in Liege-Bastogne-Liege which is the main goal for this part of the season in the Ardennes.”
The full UAE Team Emirates-XRG lineup for Liège-Bastogne-Liège is as follows:
– Felix Großschartner (Aut)
– Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor)
– Brandon McNulty (USA)
– Domen Novak (Slo)
– Tadej Pogačar (Slo)
– Pavel Sivakov (Fra)
– Florian Vermeersch (Bel)
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