Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) has won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in a controversial finish after mugging Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) on the line.
After 6½ hours of racing, a five-man group arrived at the finish together to sprint it out for victory.
New world champion Alaphilippe was leading in the sprint but as Marc Hirschi
(Team Sunweb) began to overtake him the French rider moved suddenly to his left
and bumped Hirschi.
That resulted in Hirschi pulling his foot out of the pedal and took him out of contention for victory, with Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates) also forced to correct his line.
When Alaphilippe took his hands off the bars before the line and began celebrating early, Roglič kept sprinting hard and lunged at the line to pip the world champion.
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Absolutely unbelievable scenes at #LiegeBastogneLiege!
Julian Alaphilippe celebrates prematurely but is left red-faced by a late burst from Primoz Roglic 🤦♂️ pic.twitter.com/3x1zvosjyH— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) October 4, 2020
Hirschi, who looked very unhappy about how his sprint had been impeded, crossed the line in 3rd just ahead of Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates) and Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-McLaren).
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However, when the result was reviewed Alaphilippe was penalised for the manner of his sprint and moved to the back of the group, for 5th place.
It means Roglic was 1st from Hirschi in 2nd, Pogačar in 3rd and Mohorič in 4th place followed by Alaphilippe.
Just 14 seconds after the winner crossed the line, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) won the sprint for 6th place.
Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) was in that second
group on the road and he finished the race in 11th place.
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