Tadej Pogačar rounded off his spring Classics with his second Monument of the year at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the world champion soloing home after an attack on the Côte de La Redoute.
The Slovenian now lies one win behind Moreno Argentin and Alejandro Valverde, and two behind Eddy Merckx, having captured a third Liège title in emphatic fashion.
He went clear with a move on La Redoute, which saw him float to the front and simply ride away rather than mounting a violent acceleration.
With his expected main rival, Remco Evenepoel, lying further back in the peloton and not at full fitness following his long injury layoff, Pogačar simply had no rivals for victory on Sunday.
"It feels great to finish the first part of the season like this. I'm just happy that the whole season so far went perfect," Pogačar said shortly after adding Liège to wins at the UAE Tour, Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders, and La Flèche Wallonne.
"I'm happy to go home now," he added, signalling that the race had drawn to a close the opening section of his season. His next race is scheduled for the Tour de France warmup of the Critérium du Dauphiné in early June.
Come the end of Liège, he'd roll to the finish over a minute clear of any other rider. He pointed to the sky in tribute to his girlfriend Urska Zigart's late mother, Darja, who died in April 2022. Pogačar also raced with 'For you, D' written on his race number.
He said after finishing that it wasn't in his plan to make an attack where he did. Instead, he and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad had set such a hard pace beforehand that he noticed few of his rivals had teammates left at the front of the race.
"It wasn't the plan, but it was such a hard pace before that I saw a number of teams didn't have a lot of teammates anymore," Pogačar said.
"I said, 'OK, I'll test my legs a little bit and see if I can get a gap on the top,' and then I'll decide if I continue or not.
"Then I just committed because I had good legs – also on the second climb after La Redoute. I could go to the finish, so I'm super happy."
The race was set to play host to another showdown between Pogačar and Evenepoel, but the Belgian was out of position on La Redoute, later dropping out of a chase group some way behind the sole leader.
Pogačar said he noticed Evenepoel's Soudal-QuickStep squad had "disappeared" from the front of the race, having earlier helped control the peloton with UAE. That gave him the motivation to make a move, he added.
"At first, QuickStep were controlling the bunch and racing on the front all day. At one point, they all disappeared from the front. I was thinking maybe they were saving their legs for La Redoute because you can save a lot in the bunch.
"But then on La Redoute I looked around and [Evenepoel] wasn't close on my wheel, but that was also good motivation to go at that point."
