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The Flecha Valona 2022 had a luxury lineup for this Wednesday, April 20, having two of its top winners of recent years competing once again: Alejandro Valverde of the Movistar Team who has 5 victories there and the current two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe of the Quick Step Alpha Vinyl that has three editions.
In addition, two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar took the game along with the winner of the 2020 edition of the Belgian competition, Marc Hirschi on behalf of the UAE Team Emirates. Of course there were several runners who arrived with the intention of winning the race like the Englishman Tom Pidcock of the Ineos Grenadiers, but this time he was not aware of retirement in the middle of the competition.
The race proposed 202.1 km between Blegny and Mur de Huy, during the course there were several slopes from which several runners who were very strong together with their teams took advantage of. Race conditions caused tension in cyclists to be very high and some fell, as was the case of the Colombian Winner Anacona of Arkea Samsic who was a gregarious of Warren Barguil.
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Other riders suffered mechanical damage such as Remco Evenepoel of Quick Step Alpha Vinyl, Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates and Michal Kwiatkowski of Ineos Grenadiers. Little by little, some runners left the classic game while the squad went ahead to the finish line.
The best teams that had tricks to fight for the day's victory, pulled the pack at a high pace to wear down their opponents while trying to discount time on the escaped cyclists, who were more than a minute and a half ahead of the squad of favorites.
The Cundinamarquis Daniel Martinez of Ineos Grenadiers remained with the main group waiting to detonate a strategy with his team, while helping Lotto Soudal in the pursuit of the escape.
The cards were played from the middle of the course when it seemed that the teams were already determined to cut the distance with the men who were traveling ahead and thinking about playing the race almost at the finish line.
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The big winner after a very strong attack by the Belgian Dylan Teuns of Bahrain Victorious, who subdued the Spaniard Alejandro Valverde of the Movistar Team in the last few meters to the goal and thus raise his arms and leave the veteran Murcian runner in second place, while the Russian Aleksandr Vlasov from Bora took third place hansgrohe followed in 4th place by world champion Julian Alaphilippe of Quick Step Alpha Vinyl and 5th place by Colombian Daniel Felipe Martínez of Ineosa 7 seconds behind the winner.
The Cundinamarquis continues to surprise the fans with his tremendous sporting level this season in which he has gained a lot of confidence in himself to be the leader of one of the best squads in the world. Daniel entered to compete for the title with the best in this type of course, including Tadej Pogacar who finished in 12th place.
Meanwhile, Rigoberto Urán of EF Education EasyPost entered the 42nd box 51 seconds behind Teuns, while Arkea Samsic's Winner Anacona reached the 85th in more than 3 minutes. The young Colombian rider Jesús David Peña of the BikeExchange entered the 139th position more than 19 minutes behind the champion of the Walloon Arrow, thus managing to finish his third of five competitions that he has done in his first season as a professional in Europe.
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