Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes has, in a short few years, established itself as one of the most prestigious and compelling days on the women's calendar. It is a race that rewards the complete rider – strong enough to survive the early climbs, sharp enough to read the race, and explosive enough to produce something decisive after several hours of racing. This was illustrated by Kim le Court Pienaar’s historic triumph last year, becoming the first African rider to win a Monument. Out with a fractured wrist after a crash at the Tour of Flanders, the defending champion won’t be at the startline in Bastogne. However, there are plenty of other similarly multifaceted riders in the peloton vying to be crowned in Liège.
Liège-Bastogne-Liège women’s 2026 route
The route follows a condensed but no less brutal version of the men's parcours, with the same sequence of climbs in the final 80km doing the damage. The Côte de Wanne, Stockeu, Haute-Levée and Col du Rosier string the race out before the peloton reaches its decisive stretch. The Côte de Desnié and the Côte de la Redoute, with its 20% maximum gradient, thin the field to the strongest few, and the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons and its 11% slopes which come with 13km to go.
Liège-Bastogne-Liège women's 2026 route (credit: ASO)
Contenders
Demi Vollering
Vollering is, by some distance, the form rider of the spring. Vollering won the Tour of Flanders in imperious fashion and followed it with victory at La Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday, powering over the Mur de Huy with the kind of authority that has become her signature. She has won here before, in 2021 and 2023. If there is a weakness to identify, it is that she has rarely hidden her ambitions for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and there is always a question of how much a rider in her position is prepared to spend targeting results in the spring. But, on current form, she looks almost impossible to stop.
(Image credit: Getty)
Kasia Niewiadoma
Kasia Niewiadoma arrives at Liège having had a spring disrupted by a crash at Milan-Sanremo, which forced her to miss several weeks of racing at a critical point in the calendar. How much that interruption has cost her in terms of form and confidence remains to be seen – she returned at the Ardennes with something to prove, and riders of Niewiadoma's calibre are rarely better than when they have a point to make. She knows this race well and has the climbing profile to be dangerous on the Roche-aux-Faucons if she has managed to catch up on the training she has missed.
(Image credit: Getty)
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
A budding rivalry in women's cycling is taking shape between Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Vollering. With the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift on the horizon, Sunday carries implications well beyond a single result. Ferrand-Prévot won the Grand Boucle last year and has spent the winter making clear that her ambitions for the summer are the same. A win here would be a significant psychological marker in that battle – and Visma will use the race accordingly, looking to test Vollering early and often, but she will up against it on the Ardennes climbs.
(Image credit: Getty)
Puck Pieterse
After a strong performance at La Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday, where she finished a close second to Vollering on the Mur de Huy, Pieterse arrives in Liège with momentum and confidence. She is a rider whose ability to handle repeated climbing efforts over a long day suits the demands of La Doyenne particularly well, and at 23 she is reaching the point in her career where results of this magnitude feel not just possible but likely. One to watch closely on the Redoute.
(Image credit: Getty)
Read more: Planet Puck: Mountains, mud, cobbles, gravel – Pieterse can do it all
Other contenders
Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) is rarely far from the front of any race she starts, and while the Ardennes climbs are not her most natural terrain, she is a formidable team asset and a dangerous presence in any reduced group. Likewise her teammate Anna van der Breggen knows this race better than most, having won it twice, and though she is now in the final chapter of her career, her reading of the Ardennes on a hard day remains exceptional.
Vollering’s FDJ United-Suez teammates Elise Chabbey and Juliette Berthet have been consistent across the spring Classics and will be difficult to shake on the long climbs.
The current world champion Magdeleine Vallieres is strong over the kind of parcours Liege offers, and will be a threat in a breakaway as her performance in Kigali last year proved. She will be backed up by EF Education-Oatly teammates Cédrine Kerbaol and Noemi Rüegg.
Read more: 'I wanted to have nothing to regret in the end': Magdeleine Vallieres on her Worlds breakthrough
Paula Blasi (UAE Team Emirates-ADQ) is an intriguing young talent who impressed with victory at Amstel Gold on Sunday and a third place finish at Flèche. Her UAE team is full of talent, including two-time Tour stage winner Maeva Squiban. Also look out for Liane Lippert (Movistar) and Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal Team).
Prediction
Such is her form at the moment, we can’t see anyone beating Demi Vollering at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
