The 74th edition of the Flèche Wallonne took place today between Charleroi and Huy. By keeping total control over his effort in the final part of the stage and with his attack at the right moment, the World Champion, Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) won the Belgian classic.
The rainbow jersey was thus on the highest step of the podium for his final victory while Dimitri Champion (AG2R La Mondiale)'s bleu-white-red jersey was visible during the whole race. Champion won the Prix des monts being in the leading group.

A resume of the Flèche Wallonne 2010

5 leading riders

As announced in the list of participating riders, 197 riders came to the start for 25 teams (some riders couldn't come to Charleroi because their flight was cancelled; Carlos Sastre [Cervélo TestTeam] was one of them, just like many of the riders of the Cofidis team, while for example Alberto Contador [Astana] and Alejandro Valverde [Caisse d'Epargne] came by car). 142 of them finished the race.

Almost immediately after the start, many riders tried to break away from the peloton, but none of them managed to do so until kilometer 44. There, Giuseppe Palumbo (Acqua & Sapone), who had to give up later on, was at the origin of a leading group of 5 riders with David Loosli (Lampre-Farnese Vini), Dimitri Champion (AG2R La Mondiale), Benjamin Gourgue (Landbouwkrediet) and Stéphane Augé (Cofidis).
The 5 leading riders rapidly created a gap, up to 8'25" at the first crossing of the finish line at the top of the Mur de Huy.

From that point, Team Katusha and Caisse d'Epargne managed to get the gap down to 5'15" at the top of the Côte de Peu d'Eau.

A chasing group

In the following climb, the Côte de Haut-Bois, 7 riders start chasing the leading group: Laurent Didier and Jens Voigt for Team Saxo Bank, Thomas de Gendt (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Daniele Righi for Lampre-Farnese Vini, Jan Bakelants (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Christophe Moreau for Caisse d'Epargne and Christopher Froome for Team Sky.
For the former French champion in the Caisse d'Epargne team the adventure ends when he has to leave the leading group because of a flat tyre.

The climb of the Côte de Bohisseau leads to a first sélection in the two groups and at 40 kilometers from the finish, David Loosli and Dimitri Champion are the only two riders ahead of the peloton, followed at a short distance by Bram Tankink (Rabobank), Jurgen van de Walle (Quick Step), Blel Kadri (AG2R La Mondiale) and Eduard Vorganov (Team Katusha).

When the chasing group gets back to the 2 leading riders, Kadri and Augé rapidly loose terrain and the favourites start to get at their positions at the front of the peloton. A bit later, the 4 leading riders are also taken back by the peloton. Even though Tankink tried to continue alone, he didn't manage to stay ahead either.

The race final: Evans controls his race!

At 28 kilometers from the top of the famous Mur de Huy, a new leading group of 4 riders was formed: again with David Loosli and Bram Tankink, this time together with Frank Schleck (Team Saxo Bank) and Roman Kreuziger (Liquigas-Doimo).

Several attempts to chase these riders have all been neutralised and Astana controlled the peloton for its leader Alberto Contador who announced that he came to the Belgian classics to test himself and with the ambition to complete his list of victories there in the future.
At 4 kilometers from the finish, 3 other riders manage to join the leading group anyway and with Igor Anton (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Benoît Vaugrenard (Française des Jeux) and Alexandr Kolobnev, 7 riders were then leading the race. These 7 leading riders don't manage to stay ahead for a long time and even though Kolobnev tried to coontinue alone, he's also taken back at 2 kilometers from the finish.

In the final part of the race, Andreas Klöden (Team Radioshack) commits the same mistake as Cadel Evans last year by placing his attack too early. When Igor Anton and Alberto Contador accelerate at the same time, the German rider is quickly left behind and the two Spanish riders control the race during almost the whole climb. The World Champion, Cadel Evans, follows them closely and at only 70 meters from the finish he places his decisive attack ... which allowed him to win the race at the top of the Mur!

Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha Team) finally beats Contador and the two times winner of the Tour de France thus finished 3rd.

John Lelangue, the manager of the BMC Racing Team, was thus right when he spoke about Cadel Evans in an interview with the official website letour.fr: he managed a good race at the Fleche Wallonne last year but maybe attacked too early, we talked about it a lot during the week and we went up the Mur de Huy several times. It's really difficult to manage the final climb. You don't want to take off too late not to be trapped by the other riders and you don't want to attack too early because then you're uncovered.
As a reminder, Cadel Evans finished the Flèche Wallonne 2009 at the 5th place at 7 seconds from the winner after having attacked first in the climb of the Mur de Huy.

The Flèche Wallonne 2010 classification

Taking a look at the top 10 of the classification of the Flèche Wallonne, we see that the favourites were all there in the final climb:
1/ Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team) - 4h39'24"
2/ Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha Team)
3/ Alberto Contador
4/ Igor Anton (Euskaltel-Euskadi) - +0'06"
5/ Damiano Cunego (Lampre-Farnese Vini) - +0'09"
6/ Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) - +0'11"
7/ Chris Horner (Team Radioshack) - +0'11"
8/ Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d'Epargne) - +0'11"
9/ Andy Schleck (Team Saxo Bank) - +0'11"
10/ Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Transitions) - +0'11"

The video of the last fes kilometers of the Flèche Wallonne 2010

Below you'll find the images of the last few kilometers of the Flèche Wallonne 2010:

door Thomas Vergouwen
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