Flèche Wallonne

HTC-Columbia has several options for wins at Wednesday's women's Fleche Wallone, but Judith Arndt's record at the race makes her the first name that comes to mind.

Restructured course opens up the Flèche

Alberto Contador (Astana) is aiming his pistol at the Ardennes classics.

Hot off second place at the Vuelta al País Vasco behind Chris Horner (RadioShack), Valverde says he’s in shape to have a good run through the Ardennes.

Roman Kreuziger and Vicenzo Nibali will lead Liquigas into the Ardennes classics, with Franco Pellizotti joining for Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Part of the UCI Historic calendar, La Flèche Wallonne ("the Walloon arrow") begins in Charleroi and travels east to Huy.

Team Columbia’s Marco Pinotti reached the line in the front group in Wednesday’s Fleche Wallone classic, finishing 40th, 54 seconds behind the winner Davide Rebellin. More importantly however for Pinotti was the sixth-place finish of his teammate, Thomas Lövkvist, who crossed the line just six seconds behind Rebellin.

Dutchwoman Marianne Vos (DSB Bank) attacked inside of 200 meters remaining on the Mur de Huy and never looked back, sprinting to her third-career victory at the La Flèche Wallonne Femenine, the fourth round of the 2009 UCI World Cup. Vos out-kicked World Cup leader Emma Johanson of Sweden for the win. American Amber Neben (Nürnberger) was the top North American finisher in fourth place.

There’s no secret why Davide Rebellin pointed to his head after winning his third La Flèche Wallonne title on Wednesday. The Italian veteran proved he had the legs to summit the Mur de Huy alongside the other strongmen of the Ardennes races. But it was the cagy Italian’s brains that earned him the winning margin on the slopes of the feared climb. “It might just be the best of my three wins," Rebellin said. “I've been working hard in that respect (climbing)."

Statistics can’t quite illustrate the challenge posed by the Mur de Huy, the final climb of La Fleche Wallonne. Sure, the climb’s average gradient is 9.3 percent. The road soars up 420 feet over the course of three-quarters of a mile. One particularly nasty ramp hits 25 percent. And the climb comes at the tail end of a five-hour race.

Dutch climbing specialist Robert Gesink has been forced to pull out of Wednesday's Flèche Wallonne because of a painful right knee. The 22-year-old Rabobank rider, fourth in last year's race, felt the pain towards the end of Sunday's Amstel Gold Race, in which he finished third. A subsequent scan convinced team doctors that he should have two days' complete rest and resume training on Thursday, when a decision will be taken on whether he competes in Liège-Bastogne-Liège next Sunday.

The Ardennes classics at Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastone-Liège dominate the European racing calendar this week. Race organizers wisely get out of the way and let these two behemoths take center stage in an exciting finale to the spring classics season. In Italy, the Giro del Trentino serves as a preview of who’s on form for the upcoming Giro d’Italia while the women’s World Cup continues with the Flèche Wallonne Féminine on Wednesday.

Wednesday, April 22

It was a mur too far for Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) as Kim Kirchen (High Road) sprang past the attacking Australian on the final ramps of the knee-busting steeps up the Mur de Huy on Wednesday to win a wet and wild Flèche Wallonne.

Look no further than the results sheet from Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race to see who’ll be bucking for the win in Wednesday’s mid-week classic at 72nd Flèche Wallonne. With the menacing wall at the Mur de Huy waiting at the end of the 10-climb, 199.5km course, the punchy climbers who shined on the Cauberg will be looking to hit the repeat button.

Although the three final spring Classics have similar protagonists that highlight the classification, the races are quite unique and different from one another. Amstel is a technical course loaded with short steep climbs on tiny roads; Flèche, the shortest of the three, is a race that essentially comes down to one climb, the Mur de Huy, and is a race that is nervous, fast with open roads and fewer climbs; Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the hardest of the three, has longer climbs, is the longest in distance, the most selective and perhaps, the least tactical, as the strongest man usually wins. Under

Long after this spring classics season passes into history, the spate of races that stretch from the baking Tour of Flanders of several weeks ago through this Sunday’s expected 80-degree Liége-Bastogne-Liége might be most remembered for their balmy, unseasonable weather. And when the day comes that the 2007 spring classics results are but answers to a trivia question, Gerolsteiner veteran Davide Rebellin might still be winning races.

Discovery Channel rider Ivan Basso will skip Wednesday’s Flèche Wallone and Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège over growing pressure to boycott riders with links to the Operación Puerto doping investigation heats up again. The Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport reported Tuesday that the decision comes following an agreement between Discovery Channel team officials and race organizer ASO, which runs the Tour de France as well as the two upcoming Ardennes classics. Both sides agreed it would be more pragmatic to keep the Italian out of the hilly spring classics to avoid a potentially

Valverde press conference turns uglyA press conference with defending Flèche Wallone-Liège-Bastogne-Liège champion Alejandro Valverde turned ugly Monday when Belgian journalists tried to corner the Spanish rider on links to the Operación Puerto doping investigation. When pressed that his name might be among the scores of nicknames found in police documents as part of the Spanish investigation last May, Valverde said he had nothing to worry about. “I am tranquil,” Valverde told journalists. “I know that I don’t have any problem, because if I did, I wouldn’t have been able to race in

The 71st Flèche Wallonne is set to start Wednesday morning in Charleroi, Belgium, amid swirling controversy surrounding the non-participation of both Discovery Channel’s Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso and the embattled Unibet.com team. The race’s name, meaning the “Walloon Arrow,” stems from its eastwardly course direction from the industrial city of Charleroi to Huy, in the French-speaking Walloon, or Wallonia, region of Belgium — an area that represents roughly one-third of Belgium’s population and one half of its territory. The UCI ProTour race will feature a start list of 24 teams

Spanish riders virtually overran the 70th edition of the Flèche Wallonne classic on Wednesday. Whenever there was a significant break, a Spaniard was in it; and when it came to the stiff finishing climb up the Mur de Huy, one Spaniard after another attacked before Alejandro Valverde surged in the final 200 meters to score his first victory in a ProTour classic.

With its shorter distance and steeper finish, the Flèche Wallonne is a perfect transition from last Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race and next Sunday’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The Flèche is only 202km, compared with the Amstel’s 253km and Liège’s 262km, and that shorter distance sometimes gives early breaks a better chance of survival, but the finish on the infamous Mur de Huy (a kilometer at 9.5 percent, with two bends topping 19 percent in the middle) gives the Flèche its defining feature. The past two years, Amstel winners Danilo Di Luca (2005) and Davide Rebellin (2004) have also won the Flèche,

After Tom Boonen rounded out the first half of the spring classics season by winning the GP Schelde near Antwerp on Wednesday, he said he was looking forward to some vacation time before building up toward a green-jersey bid at the Tour de France. While the current UCI ProTour leader (see standings below) puts up his feet by the pool at his home in Monte Carlo or in Spain’s Canary Islands, his co-leader at Quick Step-Innergetic, Paolo Bettini, will be coping with harsher weather (and the reality of racing) in the hills of the Netherlands and Belgium. This Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race, next

Image Files Fleche Wallone

Last year, Danilo Di Luca could only watch as rival Davide Rebellin inched away to victory on the Huy climb at the end of Flèche Wallone. Fresh off his victory in Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race, Liquigas-Bianchi rider starts Wednesday’s race as one of the favorites but Di Luca said he’s prefer to win Liège-Bastogne-Liège instead. “I won’t look for the victory at all costs. If I happened to be in good position in the final, I will fight,” Di Luca said. “The Flèche’s route is very suitable for me, but I confirm that Liège-Bastogne-Liège is the race I like the more.” Liquigas-Bianchi will come to

Start List - Flèche Wallone, 2005GEROLSTEINER1. Davide Rebellin (I)2. Marcus Fothen (G)3. Andrea Moletta (I)4. Ronny Scholz (G)5. Marco Serpellini (I)6. Fabian Wegmann (G)7. Beat Zberg (Swi)8. Marcus Zberg (Swi)DAVITAMON - LOTTO12. Serge Baguet (B)13. Christophe Brandt (B)14. Cadel Evans (Aus)15. Bjorn Leukemans (B)16. Axel Merckx (B)17. Koos Moerenhout (Nl)18. Wim Van Huffel (B)19. Preben Van Hecke (B)RABOBANK21. Oscar Freire (Sp)22. Erik Dekker (Nl)23. Thomas Dekker (Nl)24. Theo Eltink (Nl)25. LÖwik Gerben (Nl)26. Mickael Rasmussen (Dk)27. Rory Sutherland (Aus)28. Remmert Wielinga

After he won the Amstel Gold Race last Sunday, a rejuvenated and revitalized Danilo Di Luca said that his next goal was this coming weekend’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège. “That’s a race I’ve always dreamed about winning,” he said. So how come he won the Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday? “Good question,” Di Luca replied. “This morning, we decided that we would see what happens in the race. Well, [Jens] Voigt was riding very, very strong in the break. It was the decision of my director [Roberto] Amadio, and me too, to make my teammates ride.”

Britain’s Nicole Cooke (Safi-Pasta Zara) once again stamped her formidable authority on the longest kilometer in cycling — the infamous Mur de Huy — taking her second win in the women’s Fleche Wallonne in Huy, Belgium on Wednesday. Cooke won her first Fleche Wallonne title in 2003. Round 5 of 11 in this year’s women’s World Cup series, the 8th edition of the Flèche Wallonne Femmes followed the final 105km and six climbs of the 201.5km men’s race. The women’s course eliminates the men’s run from Charleroi to Huy, picking up the course as it loops through the Ardennes south of Huy. On the

The UCI ProTour has reached a turning point in its opening season. Behind us are the early (cold) stage races and the flat-landers’ spring classics. Now come the two hilly Ardennes classics (with a different set of characters, even from last Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race), followed by the summertime stage races: Switzerland’s Tour de Romandie next week; Italy’s Giro and Spain’s Tour of Catalonia in May; followed by the French Dauphiné Libéré and the Tour of Switzerland in June; and all culminating with the Tour de France in July. Like the races, the winners have also come in waves. First there

My T-Mobile teammates traveled home to America 10 days ago after a month of racing in Europe. They passed up on racing Flèche Wallonne in favor of a little rest, relaxation and build-up for the next set of races on the schedule. I was eager to race at Flèche, though I’d be without teammates – I had never competed in this classic race before and knew it would be a course that I would like. I got the opportunity to race with a mixed team, Basis–T-Mobile, a truly international squad with riders from Canada, the United States, Israel and France. They live in the Aude region of France between

Only three of the one-day European classics have summit finishes: the Amstel Gold Race, the Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. After winning the first two of these races in the past four days, Italy’s Davide Rebellin is uncannily confident that he can win the third of these hilly events this coming Sunday.

The reigning French national women’s champion Sonia Huguet scored her first international victory at Wednesday’s Flèche Wallonne, but it was the fight for the 2004 UCI World Cup that held center stage at the hilly 97.5km event. And that brought added success to Australia’s Oenone Wood, who extended her overall lead by 20 points on Russia’s Zulfia Zabirova. So after five of the year’s nine World Cup races, Wood has 202 points to Zabirova’s 154, while Mirjam Melchers of the Netherlands remained in third with 115 despite finishing outside the points Wednesday. After Wood, 23, crossed the line

World road champion Igor Astarloa appears set to leave the embattled Cofidis team if he cannot compete in two one-day classics next week. Cofidis president Francois Migraine announced last Friday that France's top team would be suspended from all racing while an investigation into alleged doping among several former and current riders is held. The decision meant that another of the team's reigning champions, Britain's David Millar - who won the time trial title in Canada - was prevented from competing in his World Cup track debut at Manchester on Saturday. Millar has expressed support for

To breakaway on the first climb of a very hilly road race is usually not a smart tactic, especially when there are still 134km and nine more climbs to go. It’s usually even more stupid to attempt such a long shot in a classic as difficult as Belgium’s Flèche Wallonne. Luckily, the little Basque rider Igor Astarloa doesn’t think much of conventional wisdom. On Wednesday, he became the first Spanish cyclist to win the Flèche; indeed, no Spaniard had ever won a classic in Belgium, France or the Netherlands. And Astarloa did it by being strong, audacious, confident, and very, very smart. You

In a field of 144 women packed with Olympic, world and European champions, and with the best professional teams all out to win, the incredible Nicole Cooke did it again. The British prodigy won the sixth edition of the women’s Flèche Wallonne, held over the same 97.5km that formed the final loop of the pro men’s race, only three days after doing the same at the Amstel Gold race, and only 10 days after her 20th birthday. Cooke won the race by attacking on the closing one-kilometer climb up the formidable Mur de Huy, which averages 13 percent and has a couple of 19-perecent switchbacks. And

Three days after Alexandre Vinokourov of Telekom clipped the wings of the climbers at last Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race, and four days before the more prestigious Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the 67th edition of the Flèche Wallonne has a very uncertain outcome this Wednesday. What we do know is that after his impressive Amstel performance Lance Armstrong is back home in Spain preparing himself for an assault at Liège, while his perennial Tour rival Jan Ullrich is using the Flèche as a tune-up for Sunday after scoring a stunning solo victory at Tuesday’s Tour of Cologne. Other stars who have said they

EDILSAVINO001 -LUPERINI Fabiana (I);002 -BOUBNENKOVA Svetlana (Rus);003 -CHUZHYNOVA Iryna (Ukr);004 -KHODTCHENKOVA Marina (Rus);005 -PARENTE Simona (I);006 -VERONESI Daniela (SMR);SATURN CYCLING TEAM011 -ARNDT Judith (G);012 -BESSETTE Lyne (Can);013 -BRUCKNER Kimberly (USA);014 -MARSAL Catherine (F);015 -PHILLIPS Jessica (USA);016 -ROSSNER Petra (G);ACCA DUE021 -POLIKEVICIUTE Rasa (Lit);022 -BELTMAN Chantal (Nl);023 -BRÄNDLI Nicole (Swi);024 -CANTELE Noemi (I);021 -POLIKEVICIUTE Rasa (Lit);026 -ZILIUTE Diana (Lit);VLAANDEREN - T-INTERIM LADIES031 -LJUNGSKOG Susanne (S);032 -PIETERS Cindy

When the final selection of riders hit the base of the Mur de Huyfor the third time and final time in the 66th edition of the Fleche Wallonneon Wednesday, the Belgian fans, tipping back beers and basking in the hazyspring sunshine, saw decent odds. After 197km of racing, including twoprevious trips over the steep, snaking Mur climb, the trademark obstacleof this Belgian spring race, it had come down to an impressive group ofsurvivors. Two were Belgian. First, there was Axel Merckx. Approaching the base of the climb, whichhas pitches surpassing 20 percent in places, Merckx attacked. A roar

Tune in Wednesday morning for live updates throughout 198km classic, Fleche-Wallonne.Men's Start list (as of 9:00 p.m. Tuesday)LOTTO - ADECCO001 - VERBRUGGHE Rik (B)002 - AERTS Mario (B)003 - BAGUET Serge (B)004 - BRANDT Christophe (B)005 - DETILLOUX Christophe (B)006 - MIKHAILOV Guennadi (Rus)007 - VAN DE WOUWER Kurt (B)008 - VAN LANCKER Kurt (B)MAPEI - QUICK STEP011 - FREIRE Oscar (Sp)012 - BETTINI Paolo (I)014 - DE WAELE Fabien (B)015 - EVANS Cadel (Aus)016 - NOE Andrea (I)017 - PAOLINI Luca (I)020 - FORNACIARI Paolo (I)COFIDIS CREDIT PAR TELEPHONE021 - KIVILEV Andrei (Kz)022 - CUESTA

CSC-Tiscali captain Laurent Jalabert is expected to return to racing in late April for the first time since he abandoned Milan-San Remo witha virus.Jalabert, who won a stage and finished third overall at Paris-Nice,will also race at GP Midi Libre, May 22-26. Lance Armstrong confirmedhe will start the race as well as part of preparations for a run at a fourthconsecutive Tour de France. It will be Armstrong's debut at Midi Libreand continues his efforts this season to add variety to his pre-Tour racingschedule.The stages:May 22: Salses-le-Chateau-CarcassoneMay 23:

On a day that started in the rain, passed through driving hail, and finished in bright sunshine, Fabiana Luperini confirmed that she is indeed on form this season with a dominating victory on the Mur de Huy in the women’s fourth World Cup of the season, Belgium’s Fleche Wallone, held April 18. The diminutive climber waited until the final climb to unleash a devastating attack that left her closest challengers, Anna Millward (neé Wilson) of Saturn and Trixi Worrack (German National) nine seconds back. Throughout the 93.5km race over six steep hills in the Ardennes region of Belgium, the

When Rik Verbrugghe won the Criterium International, he said he would improve on his placing in the Flèche Wallonne from last year, when he finished second to Francesco Casagrande. The lean Lotto rider kept his word, chasing down an early breakaway of eight riders alone, dropping all but three by the final climb, and finishing alone on the steep ascent of the Mur de Huy. The eight riders in the initial break were Ivan Basso (Fassa Bortolo), Grischa Niermann (Rabobank), Luca Paolini (Mapei), Koos Moerenhout (Domo), Jörg Jaksche (ONCE), Marcelino Garcia Alonso (CSC), Constantino Zaballa