Pogacar's dominance meets Seixas' fearlessness in Liège showdown

When Tadej Pogačar outlined his slate of Spring Monuments over the winter, the eye wasn’t really drawn to the last Sunday in April. Milan-Sanremo was his most maddening conundrum and Paris-Roubaix was his most daunting challenge, while the Tour of Flanders promised another instalment of his long-running duel with Mathieu van der Poel. 

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, by contrast, had the look of a formality. As in 2024 and 2025, it was hard to picture anything other than another Pogačar procession in the Ardennes. Amid all the speculation about the world champion’s prospects of completing a clean sweep of Monuments in 2026, Liège-Bastogne-Liège was bracketed by most as a foregone conclusion.

Now we’ve suddenly got the makings of a bike race on our hands. Pogačar emphatically remains the most likely winner on Sunday afternoon, but Paul Seixas’ remarkable progress this Spring has changed the tone of the build-up.

The sheer speed of Seixas’ development has been upsetting the accepted hierarchies of the professional peloton. Every time the 19-year-old pins on a number in 2026, he seems to bound up another few rungs of the ladder. 

When Seixas placed a dogged but still distant second behind Pogačar at Strade Bianche seven weeks ago, it was a performance that augured well for a glorious future in races of this magnitude. But nobody, save perhaps Seixas himself, thought that this glorious future would arrive quite so soon.

A week of crushing superiority at Itzulia Basque Country was followed by a display of insouciant dominance at Flèche Wallonne in midweek, when Seixas became the youngest winner in the race’s history.

Seixas’ strategy was astonishing, as he opted to control affairs on the upper reaches of Mur de Huy from the front, almost daring anybody to try to come around him. Nobody did. 

When Seixas lifted himself from the saddle for his definitive attack with 150m or so to go, he never once looked like floundering before he reached the finish line. He didn’t quite break the record on Mur de Huy, but what of it? What is essential about Seixas cannot be captured by numbers alone. There is no metric for fearlessness.

That’s what makes this Sunday’s race so intriguing. Pogačar, already the best rider in the world, looks to have hit a new level again in 2026, rattling off exhibitions at Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders, and then proving that Paris-Roubaix lies firmly within his range. But now the arrival of another apex predator into Pogačar’s ecosystem means that he might be forced to reach even greater heights at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. 

And, lest we forget, Pogačar will also face a resurgent Remco Evenepoel, who boosted his morale with a fine display in his surprise Tour of Flanders debut and then lifted some of the pressure with an assured victory at Amstel Gold Race. 

Twice a winner in Liège, Evenepoel will still be smarting from his heavy defeats to Pogačar at the Worlds, Europeans and Il Lombardia on successive weekends last Autumn. He moved to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe before the new season in a bid to close the considerable gap to Pogačar, and he certainly won’t be keen on allowing a rider six years his junior to skip ahead of him in the queue. 

On Friday, he pointed to Seixas' lack of experience over Monument distance as a factor. "We also shouldn’t be surprised if he struggles in the final hour," Evenepoel said.

It’s been some time since an edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège has felt as box office as this one. True, three years ago, there was the tantalising prospect – dashed by an early crash – of a real Pogačar-Evenepoel duel, but for much of the 21st century, La Doyenne has been somewhat overshadowed by the cobbled Classics.

Part of that was down to the course, given that the old finale on the Côte d’Ans didn’t exactly lend itself to aggressive racing, and maybe some of it was down to the personalities involved. 

Whatever the reason, Alejandro Valverde’s slew of Liège wins never registered in the public consciousness in quite the same way, say, as Tom Boonen or Fabian Cancellara’s triumphs on the cobbles.

We have to go back to 1999 to find a Liège as anticipated as this one. Back then, Michele Bartoli was seeking a third victory in succession, and he underlined his status by winning Flèche Wallonne after an 80km attack on a day of driving snow and hail.

The big challenger was the late Frank Vandenbroucke, but he sat out Flèche after impressing in his surprise Paris-Roubaix debut the previous Sunday. When he spoke to reporters two days before La Doyenne, he channelled Joe Namath’s Super Bowl guarantee by pledging to launch his winning attack on the Côte de Saint Nicolas.

Vandenbroucke was as good as his word, though in truth, the key moment came earlier, on La Redoute. When Bartoli flexed there, Vandenbroucke responded in kind, and the pair sprinted up the hill side by side before the Belgian broke his rival and bounded clear.

Although Vandenbroucke didn’t continue his offensive over the top, the message was clear. Vandenbroucke duly cruised clear on the Saint Nicolas, while Bartoli, already on fumes, would have to settle for a distant fourth.

It remains to be seen if this Liège will produce drama as indelible as that day 26 years ago, but the anticipation in the build-up feels markedly similar. As in 1999, La Redoute will surely tell us the direction of travel. 

Pogačar has struck out alone on La Redoute in each of the past two years, just as Evenepoel did en route to his victories in 2022 and 2023. The climb comes with 34km remaining on Sunday, and Seixas’ biggest rendezvous yet awaits on its slopes. He may or may not be ready, but he certainly won’t fear the big occasion.