After his below-expectations performance in the Amstel Gold Race where he abandoned close to the finish, Michal Kwiatkowski will start Liège-Bastogne-Liège as Team Sky’s leader once again, but this time with the backing of multiple Tour de France winner and teammate Chris Froome.
The defending champion in Amstel Gold last Sunday, Kwiatkowski blamed his abandon on the difficult weather conditions, and expressed deep concern about the cold and possible snow forecast for Sunday in Liege. He was not so worried, he said, about the additional climb, the Cote de Rue de Naniot, in the closing kilometres.
“If my condition is there, then I will like it more,” he told a small group of reporters. “It’s definitely harder as a finale than in previous years so that’s going to suit the riders with the strongest legs. And without the Cote de Stockeu” - a tough mid-race climb with a very difficult, dangerous descent - “it’ll be a less nervous race, for sure.”
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Having spent the week training in Valencia, Kwiatkowski said that his form was good but felt that how his body responded in poor weather would be key to his performance in Liege. That was, he said, the reason why he had to quit Amstel the previous week.
“I felt good before Amstel Gold, too, but when that freezing rain started during the race there was nothing I could do,” Kwiatkowski pointed out. The one big plus about having the forecast for snow in Liege-Bastogne-Liege, he said, was that unlike in Amstel, they had no idea such rough weather was about to begin. “We thought it was going to rain after the finish so we got caught out.
“In Liege, everybody, including me, will be mentally and physically ready for such conditions. I don’t feel great in such weather but I will start out looking forward to the race, even with the possibility of such bad conditions.”
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