Cycling’s ‘Old Lady’ may take young gun over Valverde
LIEGE: Julien Alaphilippe’s hot form suggests he can thwart Spanish veteran Alejandro Valverde’s bid for a recond-equalling fifth Liege-Batogne-Liege crown at cycling’s oldest, and some say, toughest Monument today.
There is a world class field for the 104th edition of this relentlessly challenging test of stamina with its 258km of narrow, winding hill laden roads known as “The Old Lady” and which is due to be run in searing sunshine. The race is a huge event in Belgium, where the cycling mad public gather en masse to watch a war of attrition dictated by the pace of the peloton over the never-ending hills.
Movistar’s Valverde, winner in 2006, 2008, 2015 and 2017, would appear to have the teammates, the deep well of experience and indeed the stamina to clinch one more victory and equal the great Belgian sports icon Eddy Merckx’s record of five.
The Spaniard, who is 38 next Wednesday but says he will race until Tokyo 2020, dug deep at the Fleche Wallone in midweek in a desperate bid to haul back Quick Step’s Alaphilippe. The 25-year-old Frenchman just held on to win his first classic, hinting at a generational changing of the guard. “He won because he was better,” Valverde told the Belgian press. “But If I have my nose in front with 250m to go today, no-one will stop me.” Valverde won here in 2017, latching on to a Dan Martin’s break away and outsprinting the remaining challengers.
Another younger rival is Sky’s Michal Kwiatkowski who is still only 27 but has won six classics already. The 2014 World Champion was on the podium here last year and has the “Fondisti” profile of a racer with the deep stamina to outlast his rivals in the heat over the eleven hills. When Alaphilippe won by a wheel at the Fleche Wallonne he dispelled the feeling that he had been falling short of expectations. His team leader Philippe Gilbert, himself a former winner in Liege, had been urging Alaphilippe to step up.
“It’s time for him to prove what he is capable of,” said the savvy Gilbert last week. The main challenge on the way back from Bastogne is the Cote de la Redoute, which needs to be taken with elan and is similar to the Fleche’s Mur de Huy. There is also much more vertical climbing on this final of the three Ardennes classics - 4,500m of it.
Which is why French climber Romain Bardet, sixth in 2015 and 2017, is thought to have a chance. “I’ve got something up my sleeve,” he told a press conference this week.
REAL HOT WEATHER
World time-trial champion and defending Giro d’Italia champion Tom Dumoulin is on the starting list, a huge boost to Sunweb teammate speedster Michael Matthews, who was fifth in the Fleche and 7th at Milan San Remo. Dylan Teuns will lead the BMC Team who are mourning the loss of their owner, Swiss magnate Andy Rihs, who died this week aged 75 and for whom a minute’s silence is expected to be held today.
Teuns is the right type of rider for this course and after working hard this spring for Greg Van Avermaet now has former winner Simon Gerrans working for him.
“Dylan is strong, motivated and ready,” BMC’s Valerio Piva said Friday. Vincenzo Nibali won the Milan-San Remo with a long range escape and tried to do the same on Wednesday. “Fifty kilometres full gas, the idea was to make the race as hard as possible,” said the Italian Tour de France winner.
After some particularly cold months, we encountered the first real hot weather of the season and that had an impact. We suffered.” — AFP