Although the parcour of Liège-Bastogne-Liège had been slightly altered for yesterday’s race, the Belgian Classic was still decided by a select group in the final, but it took attack after attack in order to finally escape a charging peloton.

Daniel Martin (Garmin-Sharp) caught an attacking Joaquím Rodriguez (Katusha) out of an elite escape group inside the final km 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) in 3rd.

Jerome Pineau was the top finisher for Omega Pharma-Quick Step, in 27th place. OPQS maintained a presence going into an earlier crucial climb, Cote de la Redoute. However, that was when attacks were launched, and the home crowd favourites were unable to respond. Even Michal Kwiatkowski was unable to follow up on his performances in the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche Wallonne.

“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’ll go home and I will recover a bit. I will then try to be ready for the next races.”