(Reuters) -Tadej Pogacar claimed his third Liege-Bastogne-Liege victory on Sunday after the Slovenian world champion launched a stunning solo attack 34 kilometres from the finish, just as he had last year.
Pogacar launched his attack on the climb at the iconic Cote de la Redoute and put some distance between his rivals, eventually finishing the 252km route with a time of six hours and nine seconds.
The UAE Team Emirates rider finished 63 seconds ahead of Italian Giulio Ciccone and Ireland's Ben Healy, who completed the podium after a sprint for second place.
"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," Pogacar said.
"It wasn't the plan (to attack on La Redoute), but it was such a hard pace before that I saw a number of teams didn't have a lot of teammates anymore.
"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."
Last year, Pogacar finished one minute and 39 seconds after a solo attack with 34km remaining.
Pogacar now has nine monument victories which puts him joint-third on the all-time list behind only Eddy Merckx (19) and Roger De Vlaeminck (11).
The 26-year-old also became the first rider to finish on the podium in six straight Monument races.
Another podium at the Giro di Lombardia in October would make him the first man to finish on the podium in all five in the same year.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair, Additional reporting by Vincent Daheron;)
