Spanish champion Mavi Garcia will lead a strong and mixed Liv AlUla Jayco squad at the final race of the Ardennes Classics, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, alongside recent third place finisher at Amstel Gold Race Ingvild Gåskjenn.
After showing great cohesion and achieveing strong results in the cobbled classics and then keeping that momentum following into the Ardennes classics, the team is motivated to conclude this early phase of one-day racing on a high on Sunday at the iconic event.
After gruelling conditions in Wednesday’s Fléche Wallonne, the squad knows that Sunday’s 153km event could be an epic one, and with a similar route to previous years, with the Côte de la Redoute and Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons proving to be decisive climbs, there will be no place for hiding in the race.
After taking third place a couple of weeks ago at Brabantsje Pijl, Alex Manly will join the duo, along with Jeanne Korevaar, Urska Zigart and Caronline Andersson.
Liv AlUla Jayco line-up:
Caroline Andersson
Jeanne Korevaar
Alex Manly
Mavi Garcia
Ingvild Gåskjenn
Urska Zigart
Ingvild Gåskjenn
“I feel really good lately, so the training I’ve put down over the winter has paid off. I’m excited for Liège, and we have a strong team here for the race. I think Mavi is capable of a podium in Liège, so she will be team priority, but Liège is also a bit of an open race, and hopefully we can play our cards right. It is a really nice race, but super hard. One for the climbers for sure. But also, the climbs aren’t super long, so it’s a hard one to predict I think.”
Shawn Clarke – Sport Director
“For Liège, it is a long, hard race and we think Mavi is in the best shape, so we’ll do our best to support Mavi as our main leader. Obviously with the weather, you have to be a bit flexible and luckily, we have a really strong supporting cast with Ingvild or Urska and Caroline, all riding super well right now so I think our Plan B is quite strong and will be multi-pronged. We’re really excited to see Ingvild and how she has stepped up the way that we saw when we signed her a couple of years ago. We knew she had a lot of potential and after a tough year she’s now done the work over the winter and is getting rewarded for it and I think everybody in the world now is seeing her real ability, so it’s really exciting and I couldn’t be happier for her.”
