Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) won the Flèche Wallonne Femmes, sitting on the wheel of Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) until the last 200 metres and reacting to an acceleration by Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek).
Niewiadoma quickly pulled ahead and opened a gap on the other two, and although Vollering came closer again on the final metres, but Niewiadoma raised her right arm as she crossed the line first.
The breakaway was reeled in on the last ten kilometres, and there were several attacks in the final. Riejanne Markus (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) was first onto the Mur de Huy but was quickly caught as Vollering set the pace from the bottom.
Soon, only Niewiadoma, Longo Borghini, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal), Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), and Évita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ) could follow the Dutch champion, and the latter three had to leave a gap eventually.
250 metres from the line, Niewiadoma came alongside Vollering but waited to make a move until Longo Borghini accelerated on the other side of the road. Then the Polish allrounder kicked into gear and sprinted away from the two others, holding her advantage to the finish line.
“It means a lot. I have experienced a lot of failures and a lot of second and third places, but I never stopped believing that, as a team, we can win another race. I really hope that this race will inspire a lot of people to just keep believing, keep pursuing their dreams, because the reward is always there waiting for us,” Niewiadoma said after her first individual road victory since June 2019.
“The race was super brutal because as we started, it started to rain so hard, and the temperature dropped very low, but deep inside I knew that this is my day, I just felt it somehow. And the weather conditions were on my side because I always benefit from hard races like this. As a team, we just stayed positive even though we were all shaking from the cold, everyone was there for each other, and my teammates were amazing, bringing me warm clothes so I could change and just remain focused on the final,” the 29-year-old thanked her teammates after a cold and rainy race.
When asked what it was like to beat last year’s winner, Vollering, Niewiadoma referenced the Amstel Gold Race finish in which Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) was beaten after celebrating too early.
“I thought, ‘I am not going to celebrate even a centimetre before the line!’ I didn’t want to waste energy looking around; I just gave my best because I knew that that’s all I wanted to do: just sprint for the victory. As of right now, I just want to enjoy today, and maybe tomorrow or on Friday, we will start thinking about Sunday, but after four years of not winning, this is the most important thing on my mind right now,” she wanted to enjoy her victory before focusing on Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
How it unfolded
Rain, hail, and even snow began just before the race started, and the difficult conditions had a big impact on the 146-kilometre race. Sara Martín (Movistar Team), Julie Van de Velde (AG Insurance-Soudal), and Elena Hartmann (Roland) attacked with 104km to go and formed the break of the day; their advantage grew to 4:45 minutes at the 50-kilometre mark.
Hartmann was dropped at the start of the first ascent of the Mur de Huy, and Van de Velde and Martín crossed the finish line with 31.7km to go 2:09 minutes ahead of Grace Brown (FDJ-SUEZ) and Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) who had attacked just after the Côte d’Ereffe. The peloton was 2:35 minutes down.
Brown and Rooijakkers made up ground on the two remaining escapees at first but were reeled in by the peloton 16km from the line, just before the second time up the Côte d’Ereffe. Martín and Van de Velde were only 23 seconds ahead at the top of the climb, where Rooijakkers attacked again in an attempt to bridge to the front.
Rooijakkers did pass Martín and Van de Velde just inside the 10-kilometre mark, but Élise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM), Longo Borghini, and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) bridged to Rooijakkers one by one, and they were caught 6km from the line.
After a short-lived move by Alena Amialiusik (UAE Team ADQ), Markus went off the front on the descent into Huy, but the peloton, already led by Vollering, caught her on the lower slopes of the Mur de Huy.
Vollering kept her steady pace and dropped everyone but Niewiadoma and Longo Borghini, but in the end, the 2023 winner could not reply to Niewiadoma’s attack.
Results
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