The Ardennes, history of cycling
The first edition of Liège-Bastogne-Liège was held in 1892, which makes it the oldest race on the current calendar and fully justifies the nickname of la Doyenne (the Old Lady). Besides being one of the five monuments of cycling, Liège-Bastogne-Liège is also part of the Ardennes triptych, along with Flèche Wallone and Amstel Gold Race. The three races are located in the Belgian and Dutch Ardennes, and are characterized by the short and intense walls characteristic of the area, although Amstel’s difficulties are less hard than those of the other two races. In addition, all three events contest both male and female races and therefore, in Cycling Fantasy the trophy options are doubled, since the sum of the results of these three races gives a combined trophy of their own. Fine-tune your selections!
For the women's races, the favorites are the usual suspects: Annemiek Van Vleuten (1200), Anna Van Der Breggen (1200), Marianne Vos (1200), Floortje Mackaij (800), Demi Vollering (800), Katarzyna Niewiadoma (1200), Cecille Uttrup Ludwig (800), Elizabeth Deignan (1000), Elisa Longo Borghini (1000), Marta Bastianelli (1000) or Soraya Paladin (800), to name a few.
Among men, those who usually stand out in these races are riders such as Alejandro Valverde (1200), Julian Alaphilippe (1200), Jakob Fuglsang (1000), Maximillian Schachmann (1000), Michael Matthews (1000), Michael Woods (600) or Romain Bardet (600). Finally, remember the feat of Mathieu Van Der Poel (400) in last year’s Amstel, where he took the victory after an spectacular comeback.