A stunning finale of La Fleche Wallonne was won by Stephen Williams (Israel-Premier Tech) after a breathtaking move on the final climb of Mur de Huy.
Coming into the last ascent, a dramatically reduced peloton was playing it safe and biding their time with no-one wanting to go too early on the steep climb.
Whilst bigger teams jostled for positions at the front, Williams came out wide on the left from a bit deeper and caught his rivals cold.
The rest of the peloton was slow to react and in the end, Williams was able to hold them off when they did regroup despite stumbling over the line.
Earlier in the day, the race had seen a valiant effort from Soren Kragh Andersen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) when he attacked and tried to solo the race and he certainly succeeded in livening it up.
A few attackers went early but at around 70km to go, they were all then brought back in by quite an aggressive peloton.
Andersen then attacked with a little over 60km to go, with the peloton in disarray. He was one of a number to try and launch attacks but he was the one who was able to get away.
The conditions were tricky for the riders as the race went on with plenty of rain and wind, and even some snow at some stages.
Williams looked to try and reel Andersen in but his attack didn’t last too long before he was brought back by the chasing group and joined Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B&B Hotels) and Maxim Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny)
One interesting point raised by Matt Stephens, Dan Lloyd and Luke Rowe in the Eurosport commentary box was the difference in aerodynamics between Andersen and the chasing group.
Andersen was in his race suit with a thinner rain jacket but the chasing pack were in thicker jackets due to the heavy weather. Rowe said that during testing he had conducted in different items of clothing, it can make a real difference.
Moments after that, Andersen shed the jacket and went down to the main suit as he pushed for the win whilst seeing the chasers close the gap.
Rowe later clarified that someone at Bahrain had told him they had two types of rain jacket – one more aerodynamically designed and one thicker for cold weather. And because Buitrago was so cold, he felt he had to go with the thicker one.
Entering the final 20km, it seemed inevitable that Andersen would be caught and it was the chasing group who sat up first, being absorbed by the peloton at just under 17km to go.
Next up was Andersen who was finally caught and unsurprisingly dropped with under 15km left.
That set up an interesting finale to the race with Visma-Lease a Bike (with experience) trying to do battle with Uno-X Mobility (with numbers), who were an invited team to the race as the reduced peloton hit the Cote d’Ereffe.
And with just over 10km to go, the first attack came – but it quickly pulled back as Visma’s Tim van Dijke tried his best to keep the rest of the riders in check at the front of the race.
As the riders started their final climb of the Mur de Huy, riders waited patiently to make their move with no-one willing to go too early.
In the end, it was Williams who took a chance – and it more than paid off.