THE MOST POWERFUL FOUR MINUTES IN CYCLING HISTORY
What Pogačar and Seixas did on the Côte de la Redoute on Sunday was, officially, the most extraordinary four-minute effort ever recorded in a bike race – an estimated 575 watts of extraordinary.
Around 8.7 w/kg or extra-WTF-ordinary.
They smashed Pogačar’s own 2025 benchmark on the same climb by 13 full seconds.
To put that in perspective, riders who were themselves going at roughly 8 w/kg were getting spat out the back like they’d hit a brick wall.
Yeah, so, who knows…
It nearly didn’t look like Pogi’s day for a while there. A 52-rider breakaway formed in the opening kilometres and Evenepoel was in it — a two-time winner of this race, fresh off an Amstel Gold win, with a head start that gave even UAE a genuine headache. Hour by hour though, Cosnefroy and Co. quietly, methodically, reeled it all back in. By 80km to go, it was done.
What followed was inevitable for everyone except Seixas, who didn’t get the memo til about 14km to go.
Cosnefroy gave the leadout, Pogačar launched, and the 19-year-old Frenchman glued himself to his wheel, stroke by stroke, all the way to the top. Both of them clear of the field with 35km still to race.
These numbers are violent.
POGAČAR IS STILL NUMERO UNO BUT SEIXAS IS COMING.
We’ve seen challengers to Pogačar before. Van der Poel on the cobbles. Vingegaard in the mountains. Both brilliant. Both limited, ultimately, to their own territory. Seixas is different, he’s more in Pogi’s mould. The kid looks like he can do it all, in stage races and punchy Classics alike.
Pogačar has dropped van der Poel on the Kwaremont three times now. He’s run up the score on Vingegaard at two consecutive Tours. The rest have to be at their ultimate best, and he slightly off, to win. And yet on Sunday, there’s the scrawny teen on his wheel all the way up La Redoute.
Seixas had showed his smarts at Strade Bianche earlier in the spring, briefly latching on before sensibly backing off to avoid blowing up entirely, and was rewarded with second in Siena. At Liège though, he didn’t back off til he blew.
This btw is still the best way to get strong, faster!
He was beaten in the end. Pogačar found another gear and dropped him on the Roche-aux-Faucons, but Seixas appears to be the rival Pogacar – and cycling – needs.
POGI WINS, THEN GETS FINED & NOBODY IS QUITE SURE WHY
After another hard but tinning day at the office, Tadej Pogačar came off the podium to be handed a fine of 5,000 Swiss francs, or $6149.30 USD.
Neither the race jury nor the UCI bothered to explain exactly what the issue was. The best guess doing the rounds on social media — via La Flamme Rouge — was that the UAE team logo wasn’t spaced correctly relative to the rainbow bands on his world champion jersey, but nobody’s confirmed anything officially.
VOLLERING VICTORIOUS
While the men were busy being dramatic, Demi Vollering was quietly out there making history. The Dutch FDJ United-Suez rider won a record third Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes, and this time she didn’t mess around with a sprint finish. She attacked on the Côte de la Redoute with 35km still to go and nobody could follow her. She crossed the line over a minute ahead of the chase group, where Puck Pieterse out-sprinted Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Anna van der Breggen for second.
This was her third win at LBL, a record. and won beautifully. The perfect follow uo to victory at La Flèche Wallonne earlier in the week.
After the finish, Vollering was visibly emotional, talking about how she used to dream about this race as a club rider, back before a women’s version even existed. It wasn’t that long ago that women weren’t racing La Doyenne at all.
She’s said she’ll skip the Vuelta and target the Giro d’Italia before the Tour de France Femmes in August. On current form, with four spring classics won, she is in the mix to win either, or both!
MILAN BRAL DIES AFTER COLLISION
This one is hard to write and it’s hard to read.
Belgian under-23 rider Milan Bral, 21, was killed on Sunday when he was struck by a driver at an intersection during an afternoon training ride. Emergency services got him to hospital in Ghent, but despite hours of treatment, he died that evening.
His team, Dovy Keukens FCC Cycling Team, put out a statement that said everything that needs to be said: “Milan was so much more than a rider to us. He was a wonderful person, a true teammate, someone always ready to help others. He will be deeply missed.”
He’d been making steady progress in his third under-23 season. His younger brother Xibe is a junior rider. Their uncle is former pro Sep Vanmarcke.
It’s the second loss in a matter of days — Colombian pro Cristian Camilo Muñoz Lancheros died last week after complications from a crash at the Tour du Jura. Pogačar wore a black armband at Liège in his memory.
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