Until around 4:07 pm Central European time on Friday, there was little standing in the way of what seems like an inevitable, historic third men's Ardennes Classics triple being claimed by Tadej Pogačar in the coming week.
Granted, the world champion has 713 kilometres and approximately 16 hours of racing in the way of achieving that feat of winning the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in the same season, and if it were that easy, he would have already completed the hat-trick in his illustrious career.
