photo credits @ASO
Stevie Williams (Israel-Premier Tech) took a stunning victory in today’s La Flèche Wallonne, attacking with 275m to go on the final ascent of the iconic Mur de Huy.
Williams’ winning move saw him open up a gap that later proved unassailable, with the Welsh rider having opened up enough of an advantage to see him claim the biggest win of his career.
Meanwhile, Arkéa-B&B Hotels’ Kévin Vauquelin took second place, followed by Lotto Dstny’s Maxim Van Gils rounding out the day’s podium in third.
Earlier in the day, the miserable conditions had torn the race to shreds as various teams looked to make the action as difficult as possible. Between their pace-setting, crosswinds and intense rainfall, many of the day’s big favorites such as Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates), Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) were ridden out of contention.
In advance of the final ascent of the Mur de Huy, the work of Uno-X Mobility and Visma-Lease a Bike was crucial for ensuring the winner would be decided from a reduced peloton.
Race Highlight
A few attackers went early but at around 70km to go, they were all then brought back in by quite an aggressive peloton.
Soren Kragh Andersen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) then attacked with a little over 60km to go, with the peloton in disarray.
Williams looked to try and reel Andersen in but his attack didn’t last too long before he was brought back by the chasing group and joined Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) and Maxim Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny)
Entering the final 20km, it seemed inevitable that Andersen would be caught and it was the chasing group who sat up first, being absorbed by the peloton at just under 17km to go.
Next up was Andersen who was finally caught and unsurprisingly dropped with under 15km left.
And with just over 10km to go, the first attack came – but it quickly pulled back as Visma’s Tim van Dijke tried his best to keep the rest of the riders in check at the front of the race.
As the riders started their final climb of the Mur de Huy, riders waited patiently to make their move with no one willing to go too early.
In the end, it was Williams who took a chance – and it more than paid off.
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