The fourth Monument of the season is upon us and, as ever, it's time for our run-down of the contenders for Sunday's Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
We often title these pieces '5 favourites, 5 outsiders', but this Spring has stretched and tested that format. At the Tour of Flanders, the so-called 'big three' stood head and shoulders above everyone else, and at Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne, there was one outstanding favourite who duly delivered on the idea that he'd be in a race of his own.
That rider was Tadej Pogačar and while he remains the rider to beat, at Liège he'll have company. Defending champion Remco Evenepoel is dropping in ahead of the Giro d'Italia to provide us with a second top-tier favourite as well as a mouthwatering battle in prospect.
We've already published our race preview and how to watch guide, and now it's time to look at the best of the best for Sunday's race.
It's hard to look beyond the starry duo, which is why we've put the rest of the riders in this list of contenders down as outsiders. There are some big names, and also a couple of potential surprise packages, but read on for a dive into the riders who could make an impact on Sunday.
Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
After his blistering run of form this season, there is no looking past Tadej Pogačar as the number-one favourite for Liège-Bastogne-Liège. In his sights is a historic Ardennes treble, which, in truly unprecedented style, would be coming off the back of Tour of Flanders glory.
The Slovenian comfortably delivered on his favourite status at Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne but he doesn't exist in a complete league of his own ahead of Liège. That's because world champion and defending champion Remco Evenepoel is dropping down from altitude ahead of the Giro, promising one of the most mouthwatering battles of the season to date.
That might just turn the tables on Pogačar's approach. Until now, the tactic has effectively been to try and burn everyone off his wheel. It didn't quite work at Milan-San Remo but it certainly did at Flanders and Amstel. At those races, he had to use the relatively short climbs to get rid of more traditional Classics contenders. At Liège, however, he'll be out on longer climbs against a rider preparing for the high mountains of Italy.
The weapon he possesses over this particular opponent is a stronger sprint. So whereas Pogačar knew he had to get rid of the likes of Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel earlier in the Spring, at Liège he should be confident to go to the line with his biggest rival. Of course, if he can drop Evenepoel, he won't think twice, but he wouldn't need to force the issue in the same way.
Pogačar, in theory, should be tiring, and it's fair to say his victories at Amstel and Flèche weren't quite as emphatic as Flanders. Then again, perhaps that the standard he's set himself - we're all sniffing around for glimmers of weakness in major races won at a canter. The defending champion is here but Pogačar remains the man to beat.
Favourites
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep)
Evenepoel swoops down from Mount Teide and drops into Liège to defend his title in a brief break from his laser-focused preparations for the Giro. While Pogačar has been rampaging through the spring, Evenepoel has spent much of his year on training camps - since placing second at the Volta Catalunya in late March he has been holed up in Tenerife putting in the hard yards on cycling's most renowned volcano.
So while Pogačar's form is plain to see from the list of 1s on his April results sheet, Evenepoel's is harder to read, and then there's the question mark over how riders react coming down off altitude. However, any sense of doubt is assuaged by a glance at what he did last year.
After a summer of altitude training for the Vuelta, Evenepoel dropped down and dominated the Clásica San Sebastián, another hard and hilly WorldTour one-dayer. He went on to the Vuelta two and a half weeks later and dominated that, too. There's a slightly shorter gap between Liège and the Giro, but the format is proven; Evenepoel can win a major race between altitude camp and Grand Tour.
To claim a second title, he'll realistically need to go on another of his solo escapades, but if he can reach that same level he had in Liège last year, and later at San Sebastián, he'll be more than a headache for Pogačar.
Outsiders
Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost)
Crashes have disrupted his Ardennes campaign so far but, provided they haven't left too much of a mark, Neilson Powless should be one of the big contenders for Liège. The US rider had enjoyed a breakthrough Spring as a Classics rider, placing seventh at Milan-San Remo, third at Dwars door Vlaanderen, and fifth at the Tour of Flanders. All that ahead of the hillier races that suit him better, but he was unable to finish either Amstel or Flèche.
With a clean bill of health and a clean run at Liège, Powless should be in his element. The 26-year-old has already described himself as an endurance engine, so the longer, harder, more attritional Monument-level races are where his talents come to the fore. Powless was 8th at Liège in 2022 but his career only really started down the one-day route in 2021 when he won San Sebastián and placed 5th at Worlds. He already has a lot of races and a few crashes in the legs, but
It's also worth noting that Powless lines up as part of a strong squad for EF, who are having a great season. Ben Healy has been the revelation of the hilly Classics and while Liège marks another significant step up, he's still a threat. There's also Esteban Chaves, a former Monument winner who's recapturing some good form, and the up-and-coming Italian Andrea Piccolo.
Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers)
Tom Pidcock is probably the hardest rider to read this spring. He seems to be right on the cusp of the very, very best, but then falls away quite dramatically.
At Strade Bianche, he was clearly spectacular, earning his first Classics title in style. However, after the concussion that ruled him out of San Remo, he has flattered to deceive. At Flanders he was one of only four riders – along with Van der Poel, Van Aert, and Christophe Laporte – to follow Pogačar's first acceleration over the Kwaremont, but then he dropped like a stone, forgetting to fuel, he suggested.
At Amstel, he was the last man standing under Pogačar's barrage of accelerations, but then was passed by Healy in the finale and crawled to the line clinging onto the podium for grim death. At Flèche he was well positioned and looked to be surging with 300 metres to go but ended up down in 18th.
Pidcock said the distance got to him at Amstel and that he paid for going so deep there when he got to Flèche. There always seems to have been an ingredient missing throughout this main spring campaign. And yet, there have been constant glimpses of Pidcock's fundamental talent and class, and the reason why he's one of the few who can reasonably lay claim to troubling the current crop of super-talents.
He'll have to have recovered from Amstel and Flèche, hope that base can now get him through the Monument distance, with his punch intact – oh, and he'll have to remember to eat – but if all those ingredients do come together, Pidcock is not an unrealistic winner of Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma)
It has been a long spring for Tiesj Benoot, who won Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne on the Opening Weekend, but there's plenty of optimism that he can round it out with a result in Liège. The Belgian was particularly encouraged by his seventh place at Flèche – his best result to date at that race.
"I'm by far the heaviest of the top ten, I'm sure, so I should be proud to be among these names," he said.
Benoot straddles that divide between cobbled Classics rider and hilly Classics rider, with a level of climbing ability that has seen previous teams explore his potential as a GC stage racer. It might not match the likes of Pogačar and Evenepoel, and it might not be perfectly cut out for the watts-per-kilo ramp test of Flèche, but in an attritional hilly race like Liège he can certainly hold his own. There's concrete proof of that, with two top-10s from his past two appearances.
Benoot didn't really figure at Amstel after Jumbo-Visma placed the wrong rider in the right move, but after his performance at Flèche, he's surely setting his sights for Liège even higher that those top-10s.
Mattias Skjelmose (Trek-Segafredo)
The Dane has been another revelation of this hilly Classics campaign and a revelation of the past two seasons in general. Still five months off his 23rd birthday, there's still plenty of margin for progression, both in stage racing and one-day racing.
Liège will be his third Monument after he made his debut here 12 months ago before riding Il Lombardia later in the year. It will be another step up in level, but you sense he can rise to the occasion.
Skjelmose is a punchy rider with a strong time trial and a vicious acceleration. The heavier load of climbing and more attritional nature of Liège might be pushing it at this point in his career, but you sense he can seize his chance. He lines up in a strong Trek-Segafredo squad that includes another in-form contender in Giulio Ciccone, plus a veteran can rise to these occasions, Bauke Mollema.
Romain Bardet (Team DSM)
The Frenchman caught the eye at La Flèche Wallonne with a high-speed and perhaps ill-advised dash up by the barriers on the Mur de Huy. The small gap was squeezed by a rider in front and Bardet had to halt his attack, leaving us to wonder what might have been had he successfully completed his slingshot out the front.
He surely didn't have the legs to win, or even make the podium, given he slipped to 9th by the line, but the move nevertheless thrust Romain Bardet back into our minds after a quiet Volta a Catalunya that he ultimately abandoned.
Bardet has twice finished on the Tour de France podium but is a slightly underrated one-day rider, who finished on the podium in Liège in 2023. He also has two sixth-place finishes to his name, not to mention three top 10s at Il Lombardia.
Bardet's best days may be behind him but he still regularly demonstrates his class, and his short-lived surge at Flèche will increase the intrigue over what he can muster at Liège.
Enric Mas (Movistar)
The Spaniard wasn't outstanding at Flèche, finishing 17th, and he has never finished in the top 10 at Liège, but he could well be one of the top contenders on Sunday. Mas has thrice finished on the podium of a Grand Tour, but he's putting more of an emphasis on one-day races after last year's breakthrough.
It truly happened in the Italian autumn Classics, where he won the Giro dell'Emilia before finishing a close runner-up behind Pogačar at Il Lombardia, but he was also strong at Liège. He was 12th this time last year, but part of the select group that contested the podium places behind the solo winner Evenepoel.
Mas' form isn't quite as special as it was last autumn, but it's still solid, with 5th at Ruta del Sol (which could have been more), sixth at Tirreno-Adriatico, and 5th at Ituzlia Basque Country. He's not averse to steep gradients but Flèche confirmed he needs them to come with a heavier load of climbing already in the legs, which he'll obviously find at Liège.
With no real sprint and unspectacular form, it's hard to see Mas winning the race but he should be in the equation for the top five or even the podium.
Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious)
Like Mas, Landa is a Grand Tour man with a decent run of recent form in the one-day field. The Basque rider, who finished seventh at the 2019 Liège-Bastogne-Liège, was third at last year's Il Lombardia, and caught the eye on Wednesday with his podium at La Flèche Wallonne, his first display of note there in only four appearances.
Landa has had a strong season that might just be coming to the boil at the right time. He was seventh at Valencia, second at Ruta del Sol, seventh at Tirreno-Adriatico, and fifth at Catalunya. More recently, he was runner-up and best of the rest behind a rampant Jonas Vingegaard at Itzulia Basque Country.
He revealed that he'd been sick after that race, so the Flèche result came as something of a surprise.
"I now have more confidence for Sunday," he said, identifying a possible route to victory. "Remco is coming so maybe there is a big fight between [him and Pogačar] and maybe we can use that to surprise."
Maxim Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny)
If you're looking for a true long shot, try this 23-year-old Belgian from Lotto-Dstny. Van Gils is riding his third season as a professional since coming through Lotto's U23 set-up and he's regularly catching the eye.
He was sixth overall at the Tour of Oman and then took a pair of runner-up finishes at the Volta a Catalunya. In the spring one-day races, he's been runner-up at the lower-level Volta Limburg, before placing top 10 at both Amstel and Flèche.
The distance and sheer weight of climbing make Liège a different kettle of fish but he's certainly one to watch.
