The slightly altered parcour of Liège-Bastogne-Liège still was decided by a select group in the final, but it took attack after attack in order to finally escape a hard charging peloton.
Daniel Martin (Garmin-Sharp) caught an attacking Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha Team) out of an elite six rider escape group inside the final kilometer, on the Cote de Saint-Nicolas. As the two riders approached a final turn, Martin attacked and Rodriguez could not match his pace. He went on to win solo, with Rodriguez not far behind in 2nd and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar Team) in 3rd.
Jerome Pineau was the top finisher for OPQS, in 27th place. OPQS maintained a presence going into an earlier crucial climb, Cote de la Redoute. However, that is when attacks began launching, as teams did their best to decide the final with just a few riders out of many.
“Today wasn’t a great day,” Michal Kwiatkowsk said. “I was good until La Redoute but then after that I wasn’t so super. I tried, but it was just a bad day. I have to see the positive things of this experience — I finished the race and I did all of the parcour. It will be important for the future. I really would like to thank my teammates for the support they gave me the last three races. Even today the guys were perfect and I am sad I couldn’t finish with a strong performance today. I wanted to repay everyone for their efforts. Overall, this week was good for me because I gained good experience and I was able to finish in the top five two times out of three. Now I go home and I will recover a bit. I will then try to be ready for the next races.”
“We started this race to help Michal and we were committed to do it.” Pineau said. “We did it well. Probably in the final I could have followed the group of Gilbert on Saint-Nicolas, but I maybe spent a little too much energy before. It’s a shame, but I am happy about my race and am looking forward to the next races.”
“It was a great experience,” Pieter Serry said.” I tried to always be in the front. My goal was to try to get into the actions and wait for my teammates. I think I did it and am quite happy abut my race.”
“This was my first Liege,” Carlos Verona said. “I lost contact on the second to last climb. It was really a great experience in general. I am really happy to be a part of this team, on Wednesday and today. Liege is a complicated race. You have to race a few times before understanding perfectly the parcour. I hope to do it again in the future and try to get a good result.”
