Spain’s Alejandro Valverde timed his attack to perfection on the grueling Mur de Huy to win the Fleche Wallonne for the second time on Wednesday.
The Movistar team leader, who also won the event in 2006, passed Ireland’s Daniel Martin and Michal Kwiatkowski of Poland in the final 200m of the 199.5km ride to claim his fourth victory in an Ardennes Classic.
Martin of Garmin-Sharp finished three seconds down, with Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s Kwiatkowski another second further back.
Photo: EPA
Last year’s winner Dani Moreno could finish only in ninth, with Amstel Gold Race winner Philippe Gilbert 10th.
Valverde, who turns 34 today, had been pushed off the podium at Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race when Belgian Gilbert burst clear to win by five seconds from Jelle Vanendert and Simon Gerrans of Australia, but this time BMC’s Gilbert failed to get himself into one of the leading positions at the foot of the final climb, the imposing Mur de Huy.
However, Valverde insisted there was no sense of gaining revenge on Gilbert for his defeat in the Netherlands.
“More than revenge, I simply wanted to win and I tried to win,” the Spaniard said. “On Sunday at Amstel I was happy [with fourth] because Gilbert was simply much stronger, but today I had good legs, I went for the win and I got it. I’m delighted for me, for my team, for my teammates, because everyone worked hard together.”
Martin said there was a moment he thought he might win it, but Valverde just proved too strong.
“They say that you have to learn how to race this last climb,” the 27-year-old said. “Every year I seem to get a little bit better, but again I was a little too far back at the bottom of the climb. With a few hundred meters to go I did think I might have had it, but he [Valverde] flew past and left me for dead.”
Frenchman Romain Bardet attacked at the foot of the climb, which averages almost a 10 percent gradient and has a steepest section of 26 percent, but Bardet could not make it stick and soon a host of other riders had come to the fore.
Kwiatkowski seemed to have edged ahead, but Martin, last year’s winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, came storming past with a brutal acceleration.
Yet he too slowed down as Valverde, also a two-time winner in Liege, made his move and that proved the decisive one.
Dutchman Bauke Mollema earned his best ever finish in a Classics race with fourth, while compatriot Tom Jelte Slagter was fifth.
Spaniard Moreno’s Katusha team had looked to be controlling the peloton coming up to the final climb, but suffered a crucial blow when luckless 2012 champion Joaquim Rodriguez was brought down 3km from home — his second successive tumble in a Classic as he came a cropper in the Amstel last weekend — by a crash involving Italy’s Damiano Cunego.
That seemed to affect several riders’ ability to position themselves at the front of the peloton for the crucial final 1.3km climb.
The day had begun with a three-man breakaway involving Australia’s Jonathan Clarke, Belgian Preben van Hecke and Ramunas Navardauskas of Lithuania.
Clarke was dropped about 50km from home, while the other two battled on until they were reeled in with just over 10km left, having spent about 170km in the lead.
At that point the racing was furious, with BMC, Movistar and Katusha sharing pace-making duties to ensure their leaders were in pole position once the crunch Mur de Huy came into view.
However, Gilbert’s hopes of matching the Ardennes treble he achieved in 2011 went up in smoke as he was caught well back down the field when the climb began.
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