Anna van der Breggen solos to Liege-Bastogne-Liege victory

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Anna van der Breggen (Boels Dolmans) continues to dominate the Ardennes classics, winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège and defending her lead in the UCI Women's WorldTour. Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-Scott) finished second after her daring solo was ended by van der Breggen with 5km to go, Annemiek van Vleuten (Mitchelton-Scott) rounded out the podium, winning a two-up sprint against Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervélo Bigla).

Starting in Bastogne, the women raced 136km through the Ardennes to the finish in the Liège suburb of Ans. There were four classified climbs, but the whole parcours was a continuous up-and-down. As was the case with the Flèche Wallonne, almost none of the race was televised live. Only the very last 200 metres were spliced into the men's broadcast with no prior notice given even to the commentators.

A breakaway of three riders formed early in the race. They held an advantage of just over a minute until the 6.7-kilometre Côte de La Vecquée started with 59km to go. Here, the peloton set a hard pace, dropping numerous riders and reducing the gap to the break. Julie van de Velde (Lotto Soudal Ladies) counter-attacked and joined Vita Heine (Hitec Products-Birk Sport) close to the top of the climb, but the peloton was only 12 seconds behind.

The duo was caught before the next climb, and the peloton exploded on the two-kilometre, 8.9% Côte de La Redoute: Only 20 riders remained at the top. An attack by Alena Amialiusik (Canyon-SRAM) set up a strong move by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Canyon-SRAM) who got away and built an advantage of up to 55 seconds on the following kilometres.

Cresting at 20km from the finish, the Côte de La Roche-aux-Faucons spelled the end of Ferrand-Prévot's solo: The chasers had reduced the gap to less than 20 seconds before the climb, and Moolman-Pasio attacked on the 11% slopes and joined the Frenchwoman. She brought van der Breggen and Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans) with her, and van Vleuten came up shortly afterwards while Ferrand-Prévot was dropped.

Van der Breggen led the quartet of favourites over the top, 25 seconds ahead of a chasing group with Amanda Spratt, Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), Sabrina Stultiens (WaowDeals), Ellen van Dijk (Team Sunweb), and Shara Gillow (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) in addition to Ferrand-Prévot. The six chasers caught the frontrunners with 18km to go, and Spratt immediately attacked.

No rider wanted to take the responsibility to chase down the Australian and possibly destroy their own chances in the process, and with 10km to go Spratt held a gap of 55 seconds on a chase group of around 15 riders. Attacks started flying in the chase group, bringing the gap down to less than 45 seconds coming into the Côte de Saint-Nicolas, 1.2km at 8.6% and cresting with only 5.5km to the line.

Van der Breggen, Moolman-Pasio, and van Vleuten attacked from the chase group on the Saint-Nicolas, and at the top van der Breggen had dropped the two others and was chasing Spratt on her own. The Dutchwoman caught Spratt with 5km to go, van Vleuten and Moolman-Pasio were 25 seconds behind.

Spratt took the wheel of van der Breggen and let her do the work, but had nothing left to respond to van der Breggen's acceleration on the uphill drag to the finish line. Van der Breggen took her second Liège-Bastogne-Liège victory in as many editions, Spratt was the runner-up about 50 metres behind. Van Vleuten outsprinted Moolman-Pasio for the third podium place.

Van der Breggen extends her lead in the UCI Women's WorldTour classification. With the classics season now over, the race series continues with the Tour of Chongming Island stage race in China, April 26-28.

Listen to van der Breggen talk about her victory in a post-race interview with Voxwomen below, and watch the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race highlights video.

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