This retirement of the UAE rider, who has just won the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche Wallonne, deprives the race of a royal and long-awaited explanation with the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, defending champion.
No information was immediately available on the health status of the 24-year-old Slovenian phenomenon. The organisers said he fell after 85km of racing, before the main sides of the programme, together with Denmark's Mikkel Honoré (EF Education), who also retired.
Pogacar's teammates all stopped to wait for their leader and bring him back into the pack, but the Slovenian was unable to start again.
Irresistible in recent weeks, Pogacar, winner in 2021 on the "Doyenne", the oldest of the classics, was aiming for a hat-trick in the Ardennes achieved by only two riders in history, Davide Rebellin in 2004 and Philippe Gilbert in 2011.
The double winner of the Tour de France (2020 and 2021) has since the beginning of the season a staggering record of twelve successes in eighteen days of racing, including Paris-Nice and the Tour of Flanders.
Fourth Monument of the year, Liège-Bastogne-Liège is a very hilly classic with a total of eleven climbs on the program this year.
The race is regularly marked by spectacular falls like the one last year of Julian Alaphilippe.
Then two-time reigning world champion, the Frenchman was seriously injured after hitting a tree at full speed, suffering from a pneumothorax, a fracture to a shoulder blade and several broken sides.
© 2023 AFP