Liège–Bastogne–Liège 2012

The road

At the start

The title-holder, and no clear favourite

Liège, two kilometres longer than last year and the Roche-en-Ardenne back in the road book. Philippe Gilbert defends a title he took in the middle of the greatest spring anybody can remember, and has not looked like that rider since. Rodríguez has just won the Flèche, Gasparotto the Amstel; the Schleck brothers were second and third here last April; Nibali, Sánchez and Valverde all came. Nobody is the favourite.

How it was won

1. 1141 km to go

   Rain at Bastogne

   The turn comes in a downpour, and the break's twelve minutes start to evaporate. Over the wall of Saint-Roch it is down to seven, the average speed falls to thirty-eight, and Katusha settle in at the front to hold it there.

2. 298 km to go

   The Ardennes begin to bite

   On the Côte de Wanne the day stops being long and starts being hard. Riders come off the back in ones and twos, the gap tumbles to five minutes, and just before the Stockeu, Samuel Sánchez runs into trouble he never recovers from.

3. 386 km to go

   Rolland goes across

   Pierre Rolland attacks out of the peloton on the Haute-Levée with Kiryienka and Le Lay, and the three of them chase the remnants of the break down through the rain.

4. 473 km to go

   The Rosier shreds the front

   Four and a half kilometres of climbing tear the leading group to pieces. Valverde and Voeckler both lose the race to mechanical trouble, BMC drive the bunch a minute and a half back with Gilbert sitting easy in the wheels, and still nobody dares.

5. 520 km to go

   Nibali attacks off the top

   The last survivor of the break is swept up on the Roche-aux-Faucons and the race explodes. Vincenzo Nibali crests it in front, and rather than wait for Saint-Nicolas he throws himself down the far side — twenty kilometres to Ans, alone, against a chase group that cannot agree on anything.

6. 66 km to go

   Forty-six seconds at the top of Saint-Nicolas

   Nibali goes up the last climb visibly emptying. Behind him Maxim Iglinskiy, a rider who has never won a Classic, drops Joaquim Rodríguez on the steepest ramp and crosses the summit forty-six seconds down with five kilometres left to find them.

7. 7At the line

   Caught at the flamme rouge

   Down the boulevard and up the drag to Ans the forty-six seconds become thirty, then fifteen, then a shadow in Nibali's mirror. Within sight of the red kite Iglinskiy comes past a rider who has nothing left to answer with, and keeps accelerating up the closing rise as if the win might still be taken from him. Twenty seconds at the line, Gasparotto sprinting to third for the same team, and Gilbert — the man who won everything here last April — freewheeling in sixteenth.

The result