What. A. Race.
For all the top riders, there wasn’t much left in the tank by the time the road finally flattened out in Liège. That included Oro-Medonte, Ont.’s multi-disciplined star, Isabella Holmgren.
“I’m just a little bit destroyed, to be honest,” Holmgren said after the finish. “I don’t think I’ve ever suffered like that before.”
Sunday’s brutal day
Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes was, as usual, a slow grind into something far more brutal, and Holmgren was right there when it mattered. The 20-year-old was right there towards the end hanging in a podium fight before settling for sixth.
Just behind, Sherbrooke’s Magdeleine Vallières Mill capped a steady day in eighth, giving Canada a quiet but very real presence near the front. It may not have been the result the world champion wanted, but she’s been up there in so many races–eventually she will get her third pro win.
Up the road, Demi Vollering did what she does, launching a long, clean solo with 35 km to go and never looking back en route to a third title.
Liège-Bastogne-Liège unforgiving course
The course doesn’t hide what it is: ten climbs over 156 km, with the usual suspects: La Redoute, the Forges, Roche-aux-Faucons. As Holmgren said, it’s pretty damn hard.
Early moves flickered and faded. Then, with about 50 km to go, Holmgren forced something real, slipping clear with five others on the Côte de Desnié.
Vollering lit it up on La Redoute, the race snapping into pieces. Vallières Mill lost contact, while Holmgren found herself in the right place, chasing with Puck Pieterse and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney. She looked good, taking turns and keeping the pace as the Dutch and Polish star drove it up the climbs.
“I was just trying really hard to make it over the climbs and stay with the lead group,” Holmgren said. “After that, it was just full gas.”
Over the Forges and onto Roche-aux-Faucons, the elastic stretched but didn’t quite break for her. She rode herself to the edge, and then a bit past it.
“I was on the limit the whole time,” she said. “I gave everything, so I wasn’t thinking much, to be honest… just everything.”
In the end, it was Anna van der Breggen who bridged across and nudged Holmgren out of that front trio. Pieterse took second (again) with Niewiadoma on the podium, while Holmgren rolled in soon after, spent but not empty.
“I think I need time to process it,” she said. It was a terrific debut for the Lidl-Trek…
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