Cycling: after the Amstel Gold Race, Slovenian Tadej Pogacar targets the Flèche Wallonne this Wednesday

Europe 1 with AFP 18:35 p.m., April 18, 2023

Winner of the Amstel Gold Race, Tadej Pogacar wants to drive the nail on the Flèche Wallonne Wednesday at the top of the wall of Huy before aiming for a rare hat-trick Sunday in Liège. At 24 years old, the Slovenian, irresistible since the beginning of the season, continues to tear down the partitions and tick, box by box, a list of races more and more extensive. Before turning his attention to the reconquest of the Tour de France, he set himself a spring goal commensurate with his growing excess: to win the three parts of the Ardennes, the Amstel Gold Race, the Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

The feat was achieved by only two men in the entire history of cycling, in 2011 by the Belgian Philippe Gilbert who, recently retired, now comments the races on a motorcycle. And in 2004 by the Italian Davide Rebellin who also hung up his bike last October before tragically disappearing, hit by a truck during a bike ride in Italy.

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Disgusted competition

To say that the case is in Pogacar's ropes is an understatement, so much did he still disgust the competition on Sunday in Dutch Limburg. Helpless, his opponents were reduced to watching the Slovenian Pantagruel go down half a beer on the podium to celebrate his new high-flying act, far ahead of the others. "He did a festival," said Valentin Madouas.

Perhaps they will find a reason for hope in the fact that the Flèche has never succeeded so far in Pogacar (12th in 2022, 9th in 2020, 53rd in 2019). But this looks like an anomaly because the course of the Belgian classic, with its eleven hills, including the formidable wall of Huy (1.3 km at 9.6%) to climb three times, has everything to please him.

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"The form is there"

"It's a tough race for me. I've never done well here. But the form is good so it should be possible to change that," he said. Especially since the main tamers of the wall of Huy of recent years will not be there. The defending champion, Belgian Dylan Teuns, who is ill, withdrew on Tuesday. Julian Alaphilippe, winner in 2018, 2019 and 2021, is injured in the knee. And Alejandro Valverde, four wins in a row between 2014 and 2017, has retired.

As for the other members of the brotherhood of gluttons, Van Aert, Van der Poel, Vingegaard and Roglic, they will also be absent. Remco Evenepoel will not come to challenge Pogacar until Sunday on Liège-Bastogne-Liège for a duel between young prodigies that makes you salivate in advance. Others, however, say they are ready to take up the glove Wednesday for the 87th edition of the Flèche, such as Tom Pidcock, David Gaudu, Enric Mas, Mikel Landa, Sergio Higuita, Daniel Martinez Warren Barguil or Romain Bardet.

But the presence of Pogacar still tends to shower their enthusiasm a little and many increasingly lament running for second place when the Slovenian ogre is around.