Alejandro Valverde, king of the arrow (five victories, almost six), liked the tumult and nerve attack entering the wall of Huy, advanced on the sidewalk as could and waited for the last 200m of the matterous rise of the road of the chapels (1,300 meters to 9.6%unequal: start at 7%, center at 19%, end to 13%), past the hardest, to go down to lower piñones. unbeatized. It is the tactics they call Putanchers, Sprinters in Cuesta thanks to its gigantic maximum power for two -minute efforts. A specialist in repeches. Tadej Pogacar, specialist in everything, mountain, counterreloj, pavés, asphalt, repencos, likes the cleaning of the butcher bench, sharp knives, precise cuts, clear pieces, lieutenants such as Christen and McNulty who clean the frond and make him row of supplicants; He likes the clarity of his rainbow seal, which is that of the escape victories, and a frustrated squad behind him, and that is why on April 23 he enters the slope of Huy like San Jorge in search of the dragon, a newly released colnag Dirty, two friends opening the step and, behind, Remco Evenepoel losing the air, in the last.
He, well seated, bustling almost. Therefore, it is your seal, it attacks from afar, as always, to win alone. Unique on the planet cycling. On the planet.
In Huy, the goal of the Vallea arrow for 40 years, very far is, for example, 500 meters. Ben Healy, Irish rebel who hates mirrors, anticipated surprising everyone with a violent attack. Attack just before reaching Criquicornerthe bend of the road dedicated to Claude Criquietion, the earth champion who won there just the first year of the wall, in 1985, of rainbow conquered in Montjuïc. It surprises everyone and encourages Pogacar, next to him, a soaked, dark white, spots, and Evenepoel stuck to his wheel, which responds real violent. Without raising the ass of the armchair so comfortable. Accelerates your back the vacuum is created instantaneous. Turn left in the corner of the cri -criiecion, and continues almost whistling in the 19%slide, a line of 200 meters.
“Tadej left, and I don’t think anyone was even close to following him,” says Healy. “What if I was surprised to see Tadej leave so soon? Well, that’s what he likes to do. In fact, he left him quite late to be Tadej.”
End of history. A three -minute story, minute and a half of attack. The first persecutor, the Frenchman Kevin Vauquelin, reaches the 10s; The third, Tom Pidcock, double Olympic champion of Mountain Bike, 13s, with the adorable Healy and the climber Lenny Martínez. Evenepoel, ninth, reaches 16s. The biggest differences ever achieved with an attack on the wall. As only Eddy Merckx before him, in 1972, Pogacar won the arrow dressed as world champion and as a current winner of the Tour de France, the two victories that show the wide range of their specialization in everything.
“It is an incredible feeling to win here again, in this hard final, with such a beautiful climb to see but as a cyclist I do not like so much,” says the cyclist who made the wall a sigh. “In addition, today I did not accompany, so it has been a very hard race and getting victory means a lot.”
Contrary to his custom does not delight on arrival. He lifts his fist and snats with the face of suffering aggravated by false clay dark circles, then complains and even shiver, and speech serene, too serene given the importance that the pogacarologists They give their victory, a kind of redemption for the man who barely knows the defeats and who arrived at the Ardenas with the skin scocked by the painful second consecutive positions, in Roubaix after Van der Poel and, above all, in the Amstel, where for the first time in his splendor he was hunted after escaping and lost in the Sprint before the slow Danish Mattias Skjelmose.
The fate, sadly playful, punished Skjelmose in the arrow with a fall that left him out of the race. The Queen of the Ardenas, the Dean (ran for the first time in 1892), the last spring monument will arrive on Sunday at the Lieja-Lieja-Lieja-Lieja. “I think we can make a great race on Sunday and try to win in Lieja,” adds Pogacar, already winner twice in Liege, as many as Evenepoel, the other champion who loves distant leaks, and both will collide in La Redoute, in the rock of the hawks, in forges or in Sprimont, the slopes that manufacture champions in Belgium.
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