April 24/19 13:08 pm - La Fleche Wallonne results

Posted by Editoress on 04/24/19
 

A year after dethroning Alejandro Valverde, Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) conquered the Mur de Huy again to take his second victory of La Flèche Wallonne. The race opened up much earlier than usual but the Frenchman was once again the strongest in the final climb to edge Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), one of his most consistent enemies. Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) was 3rd ahead of the youngsters Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal) and Maximilian Schachmann (BORA-hansgrohe). Julian Alaphilippe is now only the fourth rider to win Milan-Sanremo and La Flèche Wallonne the same year, following in the footsteps of Eddy Merckx, Maurizio Fondriest and Laurent Jalabert.

Attacks flew and it took just 9 km for Joseph Rosskopf (CCC Team), Robin Carpenter (Rally UHC Cycling) and Kenneth Van Rooy (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) to go away from the pack. Tom Wirgten (Wallonie Bruxelles) and then Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma) soon joined them at the front.

The gap went up to 5:45 before Julian Alahilippe’s team Deceuninck-Quick Step started driving the peloton 25 km into the race. Their acceleration on wind-exposed roads briefly split the bunch,  but things got back to normal after 35 km. The attackers’ margin then stabilised between 4 and 5 minutes on the way to the first climbss of the day, the côte de Tancrémont (km 46) and the côte des Forges (km 57). Kenneth Van Rooy conquered them first.

Lots of action far from the Mur
Things heated up again with 95 km to go. Two successive crashes split the peloton and riders Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Enric Mas (Deceunicnk-Quick Step) participated in setting a hard pace at the front. Racing was back to normal when the race entered the final circuit, 118km away from the finish. The gap between the attackers and the peloton is soon down to 3:30.

Van Rooy was dropped in the côte d’Ereffe. Cesare Benedetti (BORA-hansgrohe) and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Cofidis) accelerated from the bunch and were joined by Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Merida) in the côte de Cherave while Van Rooy was dropped from the leading group. The pace got too hard for Tom Wirtgen in the first ascent of the Mur de Huy and then just three riders remained at the front with 58 km to go.

Tom Jelte Slagter (Dimension Data) and Nathan Haas (Katusha Alpecin) join the chasing group in the valley, quickly followed by Tomasz Marczynski (Lotto Soudal) and Michael Gogl (Trek-Segafredo) while Julian Alaphilippe took a bike change. The second ascent of the côte de Cherave was too much for Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) and Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe). On the descent Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Roman Kreuziger (Dimension Data) and Domenico Pozzovivo (Bahrain-Merida) suffered a hard crash.

Mas delivers for Alaphilippe
Joseph Rosskopf went solo on the second ascent of the Mur de Huy and all the chasers were absorbed by a peloton. Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal) set the pace on the climb and a split happened after the summit, with 20 riders joining Rosskopf. Julian Alaphilippe and Alejandro Valverde were absent from this move and their teammates brought them back to the leaders with 23 km remainung to the finish.

Tomasz Marczynski (Lotto Soudal) attacked two kilometres later and he was joined by Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida) with 9km to go. Deceuninck-Quick Step and BORA-hansgrohe set the pace in the bunch, 15s behind them, and Enric Mas (Deceuninck-Quick Step) closed the gap on the final ascent of the côte de Cherave, with 6.5km to go.

The final selection was made on the final ascent of the Mur de Huy: 1.3km at 9.6%. Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) took the lead position with 600 metres to go. Then Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) attacked, only to see Julian Alaphilippe follow his move and pass him on the final 100 metres.

Michael Woods (EF Education First) was the top Canadian in 55th at 6:19 back.

Results from La Flèche Wallonne in Belgium