Van der Breggen wins La Fleche Wallonne Feminine

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Anna van der Breggen (Team SD Worx) won the Flèche Wallonne Féminine for the seventh time in a row with another show of climbing ability and control.  

Leading a small group of favourites onto the Mur de Huy and catching lone attacker Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) early on the climb, Van der Breggen remained in control all the way up to the finish. 

Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) was the only one who could stay with the world champion, and the two rode side by side until Van der Breggen started her sprint with 100 metres to go, quickly distancing Niewiadoma and surging to victory. 

Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) finished in third place, beating Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) in a bike throw to the line.

“It is mostly about the Mur in the end, but the race was hard from the beginning, the pace was really high on all the climbs," Van der Breggen said of her historic seventh victory.  

“It was a good battle with Kasia and she was strong, but I am really happy I could win this one. It is a strange thought that I am sitting here for the last time in this race. But next year I won’t bother the girls anymore, it’s up to somebody else, and that’s a good thing. Seven straight wins is incredible.”

"We made some tactical mistakes and needed to chase, but the team did that really well. And in the final, Demi [Vollering] almost closed the gap to Ruth, that was incredible.”

“We did not have control during the whole race, so there was a bit more pressure for me, too, because the girls had worked so hard already," she continued. 

How it unfolded

Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT) and Femke Gerritse (Parkhotel Valkenburg) formed the early breakaway but were reeled in by the peloton halfway through the 130.2-kilometre race. 

The next move came from Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo), Anna Henderson (Team Jumbo-Visma), and Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) who built an advantage of up to 1:20 minutes during an aggressive race.

Their lead dropped to 31 seconds at the first passage of the finish line atop the Mur de Huy with 31.7 km to go, and Team SD Worx continued to chase hard to reduce the gap further until the break was reeled in just after the Côte d’Ereffe during the final circuit.

US national champion Ruth Winder (Trek-Segafredo) attacked on her own, and as the pace in the peloton slowed, Chabbey was able to get away again and start a solo chase. The Swiss champion crashed in a tight corner and was caught on the run-in to the penultimate climb, the Côte de chemin des Gueuses. However Winder was still ahead and fully committed to the attack, forcing Trek-Segafredo’s rivals to make the chase.

An acceleration by Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) on the Côte de chemin des Gueuses split the peloton, with only nine riders remaining in the first group, less than ten seconds behind Winder. They were Van Vleuten, Longo Borghini, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope), Van der Breggen, Amanda Spratt (Team BikeExchange), Niewiadoma, Juliette Labous (Team DSM), Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx), and Margarita Victoria García (Alé BTC Ljubljana).

This group of nine traded attacks on the way towards Huy, though nobody could get away. 

With the pace rising and falling, Winder extended her gap to 30 seconds again and seemed to have a chance of victory. However Vollering took the lead in the group, working for her teammate van der Breggen, and reduced the gap to only a few seconds as Winder started the Mur de Huy.

Van der Breggen led the group of favourites onto the climb, soon went past Winder, and stayed in front for most of the Mur as one rider after the other suffered and lost contact.

Only Niewiadoma could keep up with van der Breggen, riding side by side with the world champion and even making an acceleration 150 metres from the line that briefly put the 26-year-old Pole in the lead. However, Van der Breggen responded with her own surge at the 100-metre mark and left Niewiadoma behind to celebrate her seventh consecutive victory in the Flèche Wallonne Féminine.

Although she finished outside the top-ten, Marianne Vos (Team Jumbo-Visma) defended the lead in the UCI Women’s WorldTour ranking. 

Maria Novolodskaya (A.R. Monex) took the lead in the Women’s WorldTour U23 ranking.