Liège-Bastogne-Liège

Liège-Bastogne-Liège, often called La Doyenne ("the oldest woman"), is one of the five 'Monuments' of the European professional road cycling calendar, and the oldest.

The first edition was run in 1892, but this was just for amateur riders, the first race for professionals took place in 1894 when Leon Houa (who had won that 1892 race as an amateur) triumphed. It is run in the Ardennes region in Belgium, from the city of Liège to Bastogne and back.

The Liège-Bastogne-Liège race was part of the UCI Road World Cup race series, and now part of the UCI ProTour. It is also part of the Belgian Ardennes Classics series of races, which include La Flèche Wallonne (both are organized by the Amaury Sport Organization). At one time, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège were run on successive days as "Le Weekend Ardennais". Only six riders have achieved the "Ardennes double" by winning both races in the same year: the Swiss Ferdi Kübler twice (in 1951 and 1952), Belgians Stan Ockers (1955) and Eddy Merckx (1972), Italians Moreno Argentin (1991) and Davide Rebellin (2004), and the Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (2006).

The Liege Bastogne Liege was an important race for Axel. He was under a lot of pressure to race well because it is one of the biggest classics in his home country. He shed a lot of tears of happiness and sadness here.

For more information on the race : Liège-Bastogne-Liège

The Route

The race follows a fairly straightforward 95 km route from Liège to Bastogne, and a winding 163 km route back to Liège. The second half contains most of the climbs in the race, such as the Stockeu, Haute-Levee, La Redoute, Saint-Nicolas and the Col de Forges before finishing in the northern Liège suburb of Ans. The many hills in the later part of this race gives many opportunities for riders to attack, and the race often rewards the more aggressive riders such as Michele Bartoli and Paolo Bettini.