The young wolves are ready for Saturday’s appointment.
One of the spring’s most important one-day races, Liège-Bastogne-Liège U23 takes place this weekend, when the peloton will tackle a 177km course - the longest of the last nine years - containing many of the region’s most important climbs. After what should be a rather quiet first part of the race, things are expected to heat up in the last 90 kilometers, where the riders will tackle a total of six ascents, including the legendary Côte de la Redoute.
The final hurdle on the route will be Côte de Bolland, which is just 600 meters in length, but averages 8.2% - the perfect terrain for those still having something left in the legs to attack in an attempt to arrive solo at the finish line in Blegny.
Henrique Bravo will be at the start of the Belgian race for the second time, having made his debut last year, and the Brazilian - victorious at the Tour of Antalya last month and best young rider of the Circuit des Ardennes one week ago - will hope to fight for a good result this weekend. Joining him on our roster are Mexican talent Said Cisneros, Federico Savino, Jasper Schoofs, sixth in Paris-Roubaix Espoirs, Gauthier Servranckx and Victor Soenens, who has impressed against the pros earlier this season, at Volta Comunitat Valenciana.
We go to this hard but beautiful race with a really strong team.
“It’s one of our season’s main goals and we are prepared to do a good race. We showed some nice things in the Circuit des Ardennes last week and that gave us a lot of confidence. If you look over our squad, you can see we have a couple of options for Saturday and we hope to take advantage of that”, explained sports director Eliot Lietaer.
Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images
