La Flèche Wallonne 2021: Favourites

For years, La Flèche Wallonne was another name for the Alejandro Valverde Puncher’s Revue. In the period 2014-2017 he waited patiently until the steep finish flattened out in the last few hundred metres. He jumped, opened up a gap, and celebrated – easy peasy lemon squeezy, or so it seemed.

In 2018, Julian Alaphilippe picked up the baton in a similar style before he repeated the formula in 2019. Last year, the reigning World Champion skipped La Flèche Wallonne, and Marc Hirschi took the spoils. The young Swiss outgunned Benoît Cosnefroy and Michael Woods on the line

The last time that La Flèche Wallonne didn’t come down to the last climb was as far back as 2003. Igor Astarloa brought the early break home and outsprinted Aitor Osa on the line.

Favourites 2021 La Flèche Wallonne

**** Tom Pidcock, Primoz Roglic
*** Michael Woods, David Gaudu, Julian Alaphilippe
** Benoît Cosnefroy, Michal Kwiatkowski, Sergio Higuita
* Alejandro Valverde, Adam Yates, Maximilian Schachmann, Jakob Fuglsang