After his success in the Freccia Walloon on Wednesday, Alejandro Valverde is the super favorite to win the Liège-Bastogne-Liège which takes place today on the famous heights of the Ardennes. The only rider to have won four times on the Mur d'Huy where the Freccia Vallone ends, Valverde is aiming for another four-of-a-kind in the Doyenne, the oldest of the classic-monuments, approaching the record held by Eddy Merckx who won it five times times. Behind him, the most popular are Daniel Martin, the French Julien Alaphilippe second last year and Simon Gerrans, first in 2014. Unlike Roubaix and the great Flemish classics, land conquered by riders like Cancellara or Boonen, the Doyenne due to the characteristics of the route it also attracts riders who are often protagonists in the Giro and the Tour such as Chris Froome, who are constantly absent from the start-list on the paved roads and walls. Valverde, among the big names in stage racing, is the one who best expressed himself on the endless ramps of the Ardennes. But in Liège-Bastogne-Liege Joaquim Rodriguez also stood out – twice second preceded by Andy Schleck in 2009 and by Daniel Martin in 2013 – and our Vincenzo Nibali, just a hair's breadth from victory in 2012, mocked in the sprint by Maksim Iglinsky.
And Rodriguez and Nibali are punctually at the start today trying to do the great feats achieved in another classic-monument in the Ardennes, the Giro di Lombardia, achieved twice by the Spaniard in 2012 and 2013 and by the Italian in 2015. It is not a chance that Doyenne and Lombardia have similar podiums in the roll of honour, where the names of the same riders often recur. The Irishman Daniel Martin, winner of the Doyenne in 2013, triumphed the following year in Lombardia. There would have been another great in this type of racing like Philippe Gilbert, but the Belgian, who triumphed in Lombardia in 2009 and 2010 and in Doyenne 2011, had to give up due to poor form, after the strange injury suffered in training – a strange attack that caused him to break his finger. Gilbert is missing, but a 90 caliber like Froome is back on the Doyenne scene with, it seems, finally warlike intentions: a Martian at the Tour, the Kenyan-British has always had a pale extra role in the rarefied classics in which he participated. Only one participation in Roubaix in 2008 with a retreat on the first cobbled sectors, Froome is in his fifth Doyenne with a modest 36th place in 2013 as his best result.
