Demi Vollering powers to La Fleche Wallone Feminine victory to continue SD Worx dominance

Demi Vollering has taken the La Fleche Wallone Feminine 2023 title to continue Team SD Worx dominance of the women's World Tour.

The 131-kilometre-long route saw the riders race through the Belgian Ardennes and the race was expected to be decided on an explosive hilly circuit raced twice towards the end. Trying their luck in the early breakaway was Caroline Andersson (Liv Racing TeqFind), Rachel Neylan (Cofidis Women Team) and Ella Harris (Lifeplus Wahoo)

The leading trio was successfully brought back by the peloton with around 44kms still to go. As the race took on the Mur de Huy for the second time of the day however another four-rider group rode clear and it was one full of star power.

Ashleigh Moolman, reigning world road race champion Annemiek van Vleuten, former Paris-Roubaix Femmes winner Elisa Longo Borghini and former Amstel Gold Race winner Katarzyna Niewiadoma made up the front group. With Team SD Worx having missed out, Marlon Reusser was given the task of powering a second group that included pre-race favourite Demi Vollering across to the leaders.

With 32kms to go the leading two groups combined and Shirin van Anrooij immediately attacked over the top. It was a counter-attack by her teammate Amanda Spratt however that made a more decisive move, riding clear and gaining over 40 seconds on the group containing van Vleuten and Vollering.

SD Worx were again doing the majority of the work on the front of the bunch of favourites to try and bring Spratt back but with 15kms to the gap had grown to 1:07 over the peloton with a three-woman group in between at 45 seconds.

With 11.6kms to go the peloton swallowed up that group in between themselves and Spratt with the Movistar Team joining SD Worx on the front as the time gap began dropping dramatically. 10km to go and Spratt had just 30 seconds at the front.

As the riders began to take on the penultimate climb of the day, Spratt was eventually reeled back in leaving the pre-race favourites 7.3km to battle it out for the win. Demi Vollering took to the front and set about riding everyone off the back of her wheel, causing absolute destruction behind her including dropping all her remaining teammates.

With the lead group seemingly content to wait for the Mur de Huy to battle it out for the win, the pace slowed as the riders began to look around at each other, allowing a chasing group to re-attach at the front of the race.

Through the flamme rouge, still no attacks had been made. Demi Vollering then changed that though with only Katarzyna Niewiadoma able to follow her wheel. Up the 20% sections Liane Lippert and Mavi García pulled back to Vollering. 300m to go and still Vollering on the front and accelerating again and leaving everyone else in her wake to take a supreme victory ahead of Lippert in second and Gaia Realini in third.

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