2020 Liège-Bastogne-Liège Results & Recap
2020 Liège-Bastogne-Liège is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Roglic takes victory at Liège
Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) won the 106th Liège-Bastogne-Liège after a thrilling four up finish with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) and Marc Hirschi (Team Sunweb). The quartet pulled away on the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons with 14 kilometres to go in the 258km race.
Thinking he got the victory, Alaphilippe raised his arms in victory – but it was just moments too early. With a bike throw, Roglic pipped the newly crowned world champion by inches over the line.
“It is just unbelievable,” Roglic said. “It was so close. I never stopped believing and pushed all the way to the finish - and it came down to centimetres. It is an incredible feeling. This has been a really long period for me away from home - almost three months. I’m very happy and really proud of the whole team. Tom [Dumoulin] was really good in the final kilometres, but it wasn’t just him: all my teammates did a super job to protect me throughout the whole race. I’m really happy I got to win. Finally, I managed to win something.”
“This is the first time I’ve done La Doyenne. Winning a Monument was on my wish list and I’m happy to tick that box.”
Hirschi ended up finishing in second after Alaphilippe was relegated to fifth place because of an unsafe, erratic movement, impeding the forward progress of both the Sunweb rider and Pogacar.
“Actually I had a really good day today,” Hirschi said. “I don’t know what happened in the final sprint. I haven’t seen the images as of now, so it’s hard to say anything about it. For sure [Julian] Alaphilippe touched my wheel. But it’s the way he sprinted, it just happened. I was close to his wheel and he moved a little bit sideways.
“I didn’t expect this results on the Ardennes Classic. It’s only my second time here and, although I came in good shape from the Tour de France, I didn’t think I would do so well. I look forward to come back for more next year.”
Iñigo Elosegui (Movistar Team), Kobe Goossens (Lotto-Soudal), Michael Schär (CCC Team), Kenny Molly (Bingoal WB), Omer Goldstein (Israel Start-Up Nation), Valentin Ferron, Paul Ourselin (Total Direct Energie) and Gino Mäder (NTT Pro Cycling) made up the break of the day, and escaped after just nine kilometres.
Mathijs Paasschens (Bingoal WB) bridged across to the leaders at around 40 kilometres in, and together they built up a gap of 5’45”.
In the last 100km, the dynamic changed considerably after crashes affected many favorites, including Greg van Avermaet (CCC Team) and Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott, Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-McLaren) and Michael Valgren (NTT Pro Cycling), all of whom were forced to abandon.
The tempo was upped by Trek-Segafredo, and, with 64 km to go, the breakaway was down to just Schär before it eventually reset to prepare for the final run in to Liege by way of the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons.
Alaphilippe instigated the final move on that climb, taking Roglic, Pogačar and Hirschi. They worked well together, and came into the final kilometres 20 seconds ahead of their chasers.
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