"It's one of the hardest Lièges I've ever done!" - Guillaume Martin benefits from brutal race to finish sixth

Guillaume Martin had a different run-up to the Ardennes classics then in comparison with most of his competition, but it proved a successful one. The Frenchman was the strongest Cofidis rider on the day and rode to sixth, his first Top10 in a monument.

"It's one of the hardest Lièges I've ever done! There was a very early skimming, as in the historic times of cycling," Martin said in a post-race interview. "It had been a long time since we had seen the race unbridled from this far, it was the will of the Soudal - Quick-Step. But it rather favored us in the team, Ion [Izagirre] and me. With this hardening, it was less about positioning and more about the physical."

The tough weather conditions and consistent grinding pace from Soudal - Quick-Step drained the puncheurs from their explosivity greatly. It proved a difficult challenge for everyone, but a little less for the pure climbers. When the race initially exploded in the Côte de la Redoute Ion Izagirre made his presence felt as he went on the attack, which allowed for Martin to rest a bit in the groups behind. The 29-year old's endurance came in handy as he had better legs towards the final kilometer unlike several of his group companions.

"Ion was really strong, I was a little less well at the time of the Redoute. But I didn't panic," he explained. "It's a climb in which I always have a little trouble. Conversely, I was rather confident in the end, I felt better and better, the rain advantaged me. I tried to be smart at the end to get out of the group in the last kilometers." Martin attacked together with Valentin Madouas in the closing stages of the race and managed to finish sixth on the day, a strong result to wrap up his spring campaign.