Liège-Bastogne-Liège draws the curtain on the Spring Classics and the first part of the season. Also known as La Doyenne, it stands as the last race in the micro-season known as the Ardennes Classics, which consists of Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

The Ardennes of Wallonia in Belgium, where the latter two races are held, provide an opportunity for the climbers primarily, but puncheurs tend to also do well, with short to medium climbs of varying gradients shaking up all three races. Think Julian Alaphilippe at his best.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège is the hardest of the three Ardennes Classics and the only Monument, it’s over 250km in length for the men and often features as much climbing as a hard Tour de France mountain stage, making it worthy end to the spring season. Changed slightly in 2019, the route now fittingly finishes by returning to Liège as opposed to nearby Ans.

Normally around 100km shorter than the men’s edition, this year will also see the seventh edition of the women’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège, which is normally around 100km shorter than the men’s, starting from Bastogne. It takes place on the same day as the men’s event (which is also Robyn’s birthday), and the final 100km or so is the same in both races.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2023: Key information

Luc Claessen/Getty ImagesDate: Sunday 23rd April
Start: Men’s – Liège; Women’s – Bastogne
Finish: Liège
Distance: Men’s – 258.1km; Women’s – 140km
Live TV coverage: GCN+, Eurosport
2022 winners: Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep); Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar)
Most wins: Five – Eddy Merckx; Two – Annemiek van Vleuten, Anna van der Breggen

Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2023: Routes and profiles

For 2023 riders won’t scale the entirety of the Côte de la Redoute, they’ll turn off just before the summit and skirt around to another uncategorised climb before coming back for the normal run-in. This has been touted as a move that will encourage more attacks on La Redoute.

Women’s parcours

Once again beginning in Bastogne, the women’s race covers nine climbs before the finish in Liège. For the first time, the peloton will scale the Wanne, Stockeu and Haute-Levée triptych.

ASO

It was on the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons last year that Annemiek van Vleuten distanced the chasing group, catching and passing leader Grace Brown (FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope) with 14km until the finish line. Holding off her competitors in distinct Van Vleuten fashion, the gap swelled to 30 seconds under the flamme rouge and she bagged her 89th pro victory by some margin.

Men’s parcours

The men’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège heads south towards the first climb of the day, where the Côte de La Roche-en-Ardenne awaits after 69km of racing.

ASO

From there, it’s usually a race of attrition on the loop back north to Liège. The punishing climbs amass up to over 4,000m of ascent and come in quick succession, not providing a moment’s respite. In 2022, an explosive Remco Evenepoel picked apart the splintered breakaway on his debut having ditched the peloton on La Redoute, promptly dropping Bruno Armirail (Groupama-FDJ) on the Roche-aux-Faucons to solo to victory.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2023: How to watch on TV and streaming

Jasper Jacobs/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images

In the UK, Europe and select international territories, the races will be broadcast and live-streamed on Eurosport, GCN+ and Discovery+, with the full race available to watch back afterwards on GCN+ and highlights on YouTube via GCN Racing and Eurosport. GCN provides a full list of which races are available to stream in each country across the world.

UK pricing for a GCN+ subscription is £6.99 a month or £39.99 per year. The online platform is accessible on desktop and phone, offering uninterrupted live coverage and longer broadcasts than the television. GCN+ is ad-free, gives commentary choices and provides cycling-based documentaries to watch.

The Entertainment & Sports pass Discovery+ subscription costs £6.99 a month or £59.99 a year and also includes such hits like Wheeler Dealers and Dr. Pimple Popper.

Live TV and streaming times

All times BST and subject to change by broadcasters

Women’s

Eurosport 1: 11:15-13:00GCN+: 10:15-12:00

Men’s

Eurosport 1: 13:00-17:00GCN+: 12:00-16:30

Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Teams and lineups

Peter de Voecht/Getty Images

Women’s teams

AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep

Arkéa Pro Cycling

Canyon-SRAM

Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling

Cofidis

Duolar-Chevalmeire

EF Education-TIBCO-SVB

FDJ-Suez

Fenix-Deceuninck

Human Powered Health

Israel-Premier Tech-Roland

Jayco-AlUla

Jumbo-Visma

Lifeplus-Wahoo

Liv Racing-Teqfind

Lotto-Dstny

Movistar

Parkhotel Valkenburg

SD Worx

Team Coop-Hitec Products

Team DSM

Trek-Segafredo

UAE Team ADQ

Uno X Pro Cycling

Men’s teams

AG2R-Citroën

Alpecin-Deceuninck

Arkéa-Samsic

Astana Qazaqstan

Bahrain Victorious

Bingoal WB

Bora-Hansgrohe

Cofidis

EF Education-EasyPost

Equipo Kern Pharma

Flanders-Baloise

Groupama-FDJ

Ineos Grenadiers

Intermarché-Circus-Wanty

Israel-Premier Tech

Jayco-AlUla

Jumbo-Visma

Lotto-Dstny

Movistar

Soudal-QuickStep

Team DSM

TotalEnergies

Trek-Segafredo

UAE Team Emirates

Uno X Pro Cycling

Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Previous winners

Luc Claessen/Getty Images

2022: Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar)

2021: Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Demi Vollering (SD Worx)

2020: Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo)

2019: Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott)

2018: Bob Jungels (Quick-Step Floors), Anna van der Breggen (Boels-Dolmans)

2017: Alejandro Valderde (Movistar), Anna van der Breggen (Boels-Dolmans)

2016: Wout Poels (Team Sky)

2015: Alejandro Valverde (Movistar)

2014: Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE)

2013: Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp)

2012: Maxim Iglinsky (Astana)

2011: Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto)

Liège-Bastogne-Liège: History

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, sometimes known as La Doyenne, is one of the five Monuments of cycling and is technically the oldest, having first been run for amateurs in 1892.

The first edition actually went from Spa to Bastogne and back over 250km – of the 33 starters only 17 finished. It was one by Léon Houa in 10 hours 48 minutes but the remaining 16 riders trickled in over the next five hours.

Two years later, in 1894, the race was held for professionals and Maurice Garin, the first winner of the Tour de France, finished fourth. After this the race disappeared for 14 years before returning in 1908 when the start and finish were moved to Liège.

Liège really began to capture the minds of fans in the late 1960s and 1970s during a period of domination by Eddy Merckx. Merckx won Liège five times, three of which were consecutive. Merckx claimed his fifth and final win in 1975, making him the only person to date to win La Doyenne five times.

Due to the April date the weather can be very changeable and the 1980 edition is perhaps the most well known due to the heavy snowfall that befell the race, ultimately earning the nickname ‘Neige-Bastogne-Neige’ [neige being snow in French].

Bernard Hinault won by 10 minutes, but only 21 riders finished out of 174 starters. Hinault later claimed that it took over three weeks for the full movement to return to his right hand.

In 1990 the management of the race was moved over to ASO, which resulted in a complete revamp of the route. The start/finish was moved out of Liège to Ans and five new climbs were added.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Famous editions

1969 – first Merckx victory

By 1969, Eddy Merckx had been a professional for eight years but had yet to win at Liège. ’69 had been a great year for Merckx as prior to Liège he had won every major classic in the calendar apart from Paris-Roubaix.

With just under 100km to go to the finish, Merckx broke clear on the Stockeu and caught two of his team mates, Roger Swerts and Vic Van Schil, who had been in the early breakaway.

Swerts was eventually dropped, so Merckx and Van Schil rode to the finish together. Merckx wanted to give the win to Van Schil but Van Schil insisted Merckx claim it. This was the first of five victories – a record that still stands.

1980 – Hinault in the snow

The 1980 edition of Liège is perhaps the most well known thanks to the appalling conditions that the riders had to endure. A blizzard began within minutes of the race starting and after an hour only 60 riders, approximately one third of the starters, were still left in the race.

Two riders broke away and had a lead of just over two minutes by Le Stockeu but were caught by Hinault and two other chasers on the Haute Levée. With 80km to go Hinault attacked again and, after seven hours of racing, finished in Liège 10 minutes ahead of the second place finisher Hennie Kuiper. Hinault suffered frostbite in his right hand and he claims it took over three weeks for movement to return.

1985, ’86 and ’87 – the Argentin years

Liège-Bastogne-Liège in the mid-1980s is remembered for the complete domination of Moreno Argentin. Argentin, also known as ‘Il Capo’ [The Boss] was a one-day specialist that had great success in the Ardennes Classics. What makes his wins most special is the calibre of rider he defeated: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, Phil Anderson, Guiseppi Sarroni, Greg LeMond, Robert Millar – the list goes on. Argentin ultimately went on to win the race a fourth time in 1991.

2011 – Philippe Gilbert

2011 was Philippe Gilbert’s year and he topped off a storming ‘Ardennes week’ with his win at Liège, making him one of only two people to ever do the triple – Amstel Gold, La Flèche Wallone and Liège (he also won Brabanste Pijl too). The win was especially sweet as he displayed his complete dominance over the race. Gilbert broke away with the two Schleck brothers with approximately 20km to go. Everyone expected the two brothers, who were teammates, to work together to beat Gilbert but he put the power down on the final straight and dropped them both to become the first Belgian winner since 1999.

2020 – Primož Roglič

Moved to October due to Covid, the 2020 edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège provided a serious dose of schadenfreude. With the Tour de France behind them, its climax saw an in-form group of four, including Tour winner, Tadej Pogačar, second-placed Primož Roglič, plus stage winners Julian Alaphilippe and Marc Hirschi contest the sprint.

Assumed to be the strongest finisher in the bunch, Alaphilippe kicked things off but quickly cut across the road putting both Hirschi and Pogačar out of the running. Assuming the race was sewn up, he then took his hands off the bars to celebrate, unaware his sweep across the road had failed to collect the still pedalling Roglič. A lunge of the bike was all it took for the Slovenian to nab victory, a win few begrudged a man who’d weeks before seen his Tour win slip away. Even more embarrassment followed for Alaphilippe, who found himself demoted to fifth for deviating from his line.

Liège-Bastogne-Liège: Sportive

Words: Henry Catchpole

The voice on the other end of the phone is friendly and helpful: ‘Which course would you like to do? The short, the middle or the long?’ I consider for a moment: ‘Oh, better do the long one. Won’t really be Liège-Bastogne-Liège otherwise, will it? More sort of Liège-somewhere else-Liège.’ ‘Jolly good,’ says the voice, ‘I’ll put you down for the full 273km. See you in April.’

As the line goes silent I can’t help but think he just said ‘273km’. I get out my calculator. Multiply by 0.621 equals… a very long way in imperial too. It’s 170 miles when all is said and done. I have a quick Google on the Sports Tours website, and then the sportive’s official website just to make absolutely sure there hasn’t been a mistake, and then sit down and contemplate the fact that I might have just casually bitten off more than I can chew.

Slow start

Several weeks later I draw the curtains at 5.30am and look out of the hotel window. Liège is a mass of indistinct dark blue shapes in the inky dawn but I can dimly make out the slowly moving water peloton that is the river Meuse. It’s raining. And it’s cold. The sort of Saturday morning to crawl back under the duvet. I force down two of the three pastries I bought from a Belgian petrol station the preceding afternoon and contemplate what lies ahead. I wheel my bike through the hotel foyer, cleats gingerly clip-clopping on the smooth slippery floor. Although there are lots of other cyclists in the hotel, it’s remarkably quiet. The start times for the shorter distances are a little later and it seems most people have been sensible.

The weather is foul but not snowing as it was in 1980, when Hinault took a famous victory in the pro race and only 21 riders finished. As the cold air hits my few bits of exposed skin, turning them instantly as white and pimply as a plucked turkey, I set off into the dark streets, heading for the start line a couple of minutes away. About a quarter of an hour later I cycle back past the hotel on the other side of the road. Turns out the start line is in the other direction. Still, always good to do a bit of a warm up before a long ride. I don’t hang around for long at the start line. Everyone is leaving in dribs and drabs, but a group forms at a red traffic light a few hundred metres later. I look around at the bunch of a dozen or so other riders and spot the Italians (mahogany tan, stylish in a slightly fluoro way), the Belgians (tough, Flanders Lion somewhere on their kit) and one chap who for some reason I just know is British. He looks not unlike Ian Stannard – a man for long miles in rough weather if ever there was one.

Then, after a bit of questioning, he reveals he’s an Ironman triathlete. That seals the deal – here is a man, Simon, who knows about pacing and endurance. He will definitely make it to the finish, so if I can stick with him I should too. He has unknowingly just cursed himself with having me as his shadow for as much of the day as I can manage. We wind out of Liège remarkably quickly but any thought that the hills are all in the return leg from Bastogne are quickly dismissed as the road tilts upwards. The climbs aren’t steep and it’s easy to settle into a rhythm, but they do drag on, so the kilometres don’t tick by quite as quickly as I’d like. The split for the shorter 156km route comes early – too early to consider ducking out from the original plan – and as I roll past the turning I’m committed to the full route.

The big push

We’re heading due south to Bastogne and this outward leg of 112km is seemingly entirely into a headwind, which makes it important to take shelter while I can. Neither Simon nor I want to be wheelsuckers, so we do our time with our noses in the wind, but we’re glad to settle back into the draft when we’ve done our share. A couple of times I find myself momentarily latching onto faster riders, but I rein myself in as I feel my heart rate rising and drift back to Simon, who is proving very good company. For starters we admire the countryside that we’re passing through, because despite the weather the Ardennes region is undeniably beautiful. Although the outward hills take a while to conquer, the benefit is that the descents are equally long. We’re soon passing the Bastogne Barracks, a museum run by the Belgian army.

The town played a crucial part in the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War, the 101st Airborne division becoming encircled by the counter-attacking Germans. Besieged in the town over the Christmas of 1944, they were asked to surrender by the Germans, to which Brigadier General McAuliffe simply and famously responded: ‘NUTS!’. They were eventually relieved by General Patton’s Third Army on Boxing Day. Today when we reach the Bastogne feed station the streets look like they’re still running with blood, but thankfully it turns out to be a minor leak from the big vat of raspberry energy drink. In some ways Bastogne does feel like the halfway point of the ride that the name would suggest. In terms of distance it’s not, but it’s as far south as we’ll go today and we’ve been riding into a stiff headwind so both mentally and physically it feels good to leave the town behind.

After a few minutes we turn off onto a much smaller road, which winds through a beautiful pastoral landscape. Simon and I sit up a bit, ease the shoulders and settle back into the plan. Not long afterwards we’re into the first of the climbs that define the Liège-Bastogne-Liège route. I’ve seen so many pictures of the Côte de Saint-Roch that it’s a strange experience seeing it for real. n all the images, the space between the houses is crammed with the brightly coloured backs of professionals bobbing up and down on the insanely steep gradient. Today it’s a touch more drab and the cyclists are ascending in a more ragged fashion. Because I’ve only ever seen the first bit of the climb, I take a gamble that it’s only short and attack it hard.

After a few hundred metres I realise I’ve made a mistake, because although the terraced houses have petered out and the gradient has eased from the high teens, there still seems to be some way to go. I push on until the summit because there’s nothing else to do, but my quads are screaming by the time I top out under a large aerial mast. I release myself from the pedals and enjoy a brief slump onto the top tube. Simon is a disappointingly short distance behind me and we set off again as the cold wind whips across the open fields. Glancing at the sticker showing me the distances to all the climbs I’m pleased to see that I’ve got just over 40km to let my legs settle down and flush the lactic clear.

Digging in

All too soon the Cote de Wanne is on us, and although it’s 2.2km long the gradient isn’t so severe. Unfortunately just 8km later is the Stockeu and that really is a beast. Even worse, it’s the first of four officially timed climbs, which is like a red rag to a bull. From the moment I round the sharp right turn onto the narrow road I decide to give it everything. The gradient reaches 21% and there’s no hiding from that sort of slope. I grind past quite a lot of people in the next six minutes, but it’s not pretty, and the website later records that I bag a reasonable 116th place out of 1,474.

If the climb up is mentally tough, the descent isn’t much better. It’s narrow, bumpy and wet and the idea of travelling down it in a race with a jostling peloton is quite terrifying. The next surprise to hit us is a section of cobbles. It’s a shock to the system, but thankfully it only lasts for a short distance as we leave Stavelot, and it’s not long before we’re at the foot of the day’s longest climb, the Col du Rosier. At 4.5km it takes a while to tackle, but it’s not actually difficult, averaging only 5.7%. However, by the time we join the N633 on the other side, Simon and I have both started doing calculations, because he’s got a flight to catch and I have got a similar appointment with a Eurostar. We decide that with the 200km barrier broken it’s time to put some effort in.

It’s about 10 minutes later when I look back and realise Simon isn’t on my wheel. I consider stopping but my legs feel good and I even go straight past a big group without stopping to enjoy the tow. Then it’s time to set about the route’s most famous climb: La Redoute. It’s already lined with caravans as people bag their spot for the professional race the next day. Small camping chairs are set out and a few warm-up beers are being consumed, so riders get the odd cheer of much needed encouragement. Initially the 1.6km climb doesn’t seem too fearsome, but it’s the second half where things start to hurt. With the gradient peaking at 20%, my upper body struggling almost as much as my legs as I lever myself up the climb, I wonder if 200km was too early to let myself off the leash.

Onwards to glory

Tags: ClassicsLiège-Bastogne-Liège