If there was ever any doubt that Tadej Pogačar operates on a different plane, the 2026 edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège put paid to it.
The race ignited long before the traditional flashpoints. An large early breakaway forced a massive split in the peloton. Evenepoel—presumably trying to justify his new eternal corporate contract—found himself in the front group, while Pogačar and the rest of the favorites chased in the peloton. For a brief, fleeting moment, it looked like Evenepoel might have tactically outsmarted the World Champion.
But this is Pogačar, and his UAE Team Emirates domestiques reeled the race back together. Once the early chaos was neutralized and the peloton hit the Côte de la Redoute with 35 kilometers to go, the actual race began.
Pogačar launched his trademark, seated acceleration. It wasn’t a sprint; it was a steady, suffocating increase in wattage that breaks the willpower of the riders behind him. Evenepoel, the defending Olympic Champion, cracked under the pressure and was dropped.
Only one rider could hold Pogačar’s wheel on La Redoute: 19-year-old Paul Seixas.
Fresh off embarrassing the entire peloton at Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday, the Decathlon teenager glued himself to the World Champion’s back wheel. For the next 20 kilometers, the undisputed king of the sport was shadowed by a teenager who hasn’t even raced a Grand Tour yet. A teenager who, we must say, was not content to follow the wheel and instead contributed at the front.
But La Doyenne is a cruel mistress, and the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons is where the fairytale ended. At the base of the final climb, Pogačar turned the screws one final time. The elastic snapped. Seixas capitulated, and Pogačar crested the summit alone, building a lead that he would hold all the way to the finish line in Liège.
As he crossed the line to claim his fourth career Liège-Bastogne-Liège title (tying Moreno Argentin and Alejandro Valverde), Pogačar sat up, placed his hand over his heart, and pointed to the sky. It was a quiet, poignant tribute to former UAE teammate Cristian Camilo Muñoz, who tragically passed away earlier this week. The peloton is a deeply connected human fraternity.
Behind Pogačar, Paul Seixas dragged his exhausted body over the line 45 seconds later to claim second place. We are officially in the Seixas era, and Decathlon is going to have a very hard time keeping him off their Tour de France roster now.
Further down the road, Remco Evenepoel managed to salvage some pride. Despite being blown out the back door on La Redoute, he marshaled a chasing group that included Egan Bernal, Pello Bilbao, and Romain Grégoire. In the final sprint for the line, Evenepoel overpowered the group to take third place, one minute and 42 seconds behind Pogačar.
The Spring Classics are over. Pogačar has conquered the Ardennes, the cobblestones are back in storage, and the WorldTour now turns its terrified eyes toward the Grand Tours. May God have mercy on whoever has to race against Tadej in July.
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