Vos wins her fourth Flèche Wallonne

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Marianne Vos proved that she is the top women’s Classics rider of 2011 by winning her second World Cup race in five days, becoming the only woman to have won the Flèche Wallonne four times.

The 109.5km race started in Huy, and covered all of the same climbs as the men’s event, but with only two ascents of the Mur de Huy to the men’s three.

The race began with attacks from the start, but none had been able to stay away until HTC-Highroad’s Evelyn Stevens attacked solo after the Côte de Bohisseau. At one point, she held an advantage of 1:15, but a group of 20 riders, including Emma Johansson (Hitec Products UCK), Judith Arndt (HTC-Highroad), Nicole Cooke (MCipollini-Giambenini) and Marianne Vos (Nederland Bloeit), was chasing hard, and by the time she crossed the Mur de Huy for the first time, her gap had dropped to 20 seconds.

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She was finally caught with about 15 km to go, and in the final ten kilometres an elite group was leading the race. With under five kilometres to go, Diadora-Pasta Zara’s Olga Zabelinskaya attacked, and was joined by Vos, but they were caught within the last kilometres, and the group came together for the final climb of the Mur de Huy.

In an exciting final sprint up the Mur, Vos finished three seconds ahead of Emma Johansson. This is Johansson’s second time to occupy the second step of the podium in the race – the Swedish rider finished in second place in 2009 and in third place last year. Judith Arndt, who will be on the podium for her fifth time, came home in third.

'It's a really hard climb and so a few seconds is only a few metres but a win is a win, it doesn't matter how big the gap is." Vos told Cyclingnews after the race

"Evelyn Stevens was in the lead and we tried to control the race and my teammates did a great job to keep me out of the wind and keep me in front. Evelyn is really strong but it's really hard alone on the climbs and up the Mur two times. There was a long way to go and we held her at a minute and then my teammate Annemiek van Vleuten did a great job with some Garmin riders.

“We caught Stevens and then after that it was important not to let anyone else escape before the climb.”

This has been a spectacular year for the 23-year old Dutch rider, who started 2011 by winning the Cyclocross World Championships in Sankt Wendel, and won her second rainbow jersey of the year in the Scratch race at the Track World championships in Apeldoorn, taking her total number of World Championship gold medals to seven.

Riding track delayed Vos’ start on the road, but her win today means she takes the lead in the UCI Road World Cup series from her teammate Annemiek van Vleuten, who finished the race in sixth place.

Vos leads the series with 185 points over Van Vleuten’s 158, and Emma Johansson retains her third place in the standings on 145. The fifth round of the World Cup will be the Tour of Chong Ming Island on May 15.

World Cup standings after 4 rounds