Tom Pidcock’s possibilities of shining within the Ardennes Classics obtained a serious increase after it was confirmed that Pidcock’s Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team had obtained wildcard invites for each the 2025 editions of La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Tudor Pro Cycling have additionally obtained wild card invites, with group leaders Julian Alaphilippe and Marc Hirschi anticipated to contend victory, alongside Pidcock and Tadej Pogačar. Remco Evenepoel is also in motion if his restoration from his shoulder damage goes to plan.
Having switched from Ineos Grenadiers to Q36.5 late in 2024, Pidcock has already accepted he can be skipping the Tour de France this 12 months, rendering a possible deal with the one-day Classics like Flèche and Liège much more necessary.
Pidcock’s observe document within the closing Spring Classics of the season is spectacular. Last 12 months the Briton took considered one of Ineos Grenadiers’ greatest 2024 triumphs on the Amstel Gold Race, held on the Sunday throughout the border in Holland earlier than the Belgian Ardennes Classics. In 2022 he received Brabantse Pijl, the semi-Classic which takes place the earlier week.
Pidcock additionally took second in Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2023, thus far Great Britain’s greatest ever end in biking’s oldest Monument and Pidcock’s personal private greatest in any Monument. His greatest end result from La Flèche Wallonne dates from 2021, when he positioned sixth.
The presence of Q36.5 within the Belgian Ardennes provides one other necessary piece to the jigsaw puzzle of Pidcock’s 2025 marketing campaign.
The 25-year-old will begin his season on January 28 on the five-stage AIUIa Tour in Saudi Arabia and it was additionally not too long ago introduced by the organisation of the Vuelta a Andalucia that the Briton can be participating within the Spanish early season occasion, which runs from February 19-23.
As but, not one of the Grand Tours have introduced their wild card choices, though Q36.5 are thought-about doable candidates each for the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a España. Tudor Pro Cycling and Uno-X Mobility are hoping for a wild card place on the Tour de France.
Another keenly anticipated participant within the Ardennes this April can be Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), again racing after a brief retirement.
Van der Breggen has a minimum of seven wins in La Flèche Wallonne in addition to two victories in Liège, making her a serious pre-race favorite.
Race organisers ASO additionally confirmed the 2025 routes for each males’s and ladies’s Belgian Ardennes Classic on Wednesday.
The one main change in La Flèche Wallonne is the reintroduction, after a 12 months’s absence, of the late ascent of Côte de Cherave on the ending circuit.
Just 1.4 kilometres lengthy however with stretches at as much as 13.8%, Cherave will comply with the Côte de Ereffe and instantly precede the ascent to the Mûr de Huy, possible lowering the pack earlier than the ultimate mass assault on the final climb.
Barring a few tweaks on the early a part of the course, the route for the lads’s version of Liége-Bastogne-Liége stays largely unchanged in comparison with 2024, with the emotional highpoint coming with the fiftieth ascent of the Côte de la Redoute.
First utilized in 1975, La Redoute has been lengthy established as essentially the most emblematic climb of the race. It may also type a part of Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes, which like La Flèche Wallonne Femmes, will finish shortly after the lads’s race after tv audiences proved to a lot increased.
ASO introduced the 2025 wildcard groups for the In Flèche and Liège Femmes are Arkéa-B&B Hotels Women, Cofidis Women Team, DD Group Pro Cycling Team, EF Education – Oatly, Laboral Kutxa – Fundacion Euskadi, Lotto, St Michel – Préférence Home – Auber 93, Team Coop Repsol, Volkerwessels Cycling Team and Winspace Orange Seal.
In the equal males’s races, the wild playing cards for La Flèche Wallonne alongside Q36.5 and Tudor ProCycling went Wagner Bazin WB and Flanders Baloise. The first three groups may also be current in Liège the next Sunday, the place French ProTeam Total Energies will substitute Flanders Baloise.
