Every year riders say they want to target the Ardennes races, this period of racing in late April with hilly races in Belgium and beyond. It’s a trap.
First a geography lesson in pedantry. “The Ardennes” is a label applied to a series of hilly races in late April spanning from the Brabantse Pijl to Liège-Bastogne-Liège with the Amstel Gold Race and today’s Flèche Wallonne along the way. How many are actually in l’Ardenne?
One, Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The map above comes from ardennebelge.be and you can see Bastogne in the middle on the right. Liège though sits outside to the north. But another site writes “the Ardennes is a land of nuances. Its borders are always fluid” and you can argue Liège and Huy are gateways to l’Ardenne and so the Flèche dabbles with the border area, especially early today around Esneux.
All this is fine in a heuristic sense. Cycling insiders know what “the Ardennes” means, it’s become a catch-all label for the races in a similar part of the world at a similar time of year. Geographical imprecision is normal, take the five Monuments: Milan-Sanremo doesn’t start in Milan any more; the Tour of Flanders doesn’t tour Flanders, Paris-Roubaix starts in Compiègne and Il Lombardia, formerly the Tour of Lombardia, only ever visits three of the 12 provinces of Lombardy these days. Liège-Bastogne-Liège is the most honestly named Monument.
Those riders that are too light for the cobbled classics can find terrain to suit here and something to aim for, just as the cobbled classics specialists get their races earlier this month. Google the phrase briller dans les Ardennes and you get a stream of riders hoping to “shine in the Ardennes” that goes back as far as the internet.
But it’s a very difficult goal. For starters we’re talking about four races whereas the cobble specialists get many more with the likes of Le Samyn, Dwars door Vlaanderen, the E3 and plenty more. Even if this window expands to include the Tour of the Basque Country it’s still an evanescent moment in the calendar. By contrast among these cobbled races there’s variety, the Ronde van Vlaanderen for example is culturally a highlight of this cobbled season but has so many climbs now that it excludes plenty of cobbled specialists. The average weight of this year’s podium was under 70kg. Now it’s hardly a climber’s paradise but the point is that riders thinking of the Ardennes could tag the Ronde too. Romain Grégoire has done just this year.
Otherwise “the Ardennes” is a tiny part of the calendar to hang spring hopes on. Right now Matteo Jorgenson makes a cruel illustration as he put his focus on these races only to break a collarbone in the Amstel last Sunday. Now anyone can target a grand tour and leave in the first week too; it’s more that targetting these races means aiming at just four races or in the case of Jorgenson three as he didn’t do the Pijl. Even if he was left unharmed in the Amstel it’s a tiny window, a spyhole in the calendar. Nevermind Jorgenson as every year plenty aim for the same.
Still targetting the “Ardennes” races has made increasing sense, these races increasingly reward similar riders. The Amstel has evolved over the years to become hillier. It used to finish in Maastricht and was open to sprinters like Erik Zabel, Johan Museeuw and Olaf Ludwig (pictured).
Similarly the Flèche Wallonne may feel like the most scripted race of the season with its uphill finish that has seen a bunch sprint every time since 2004. We’ll never know if Mauri Vansevenant could have broken the run in 2020 when he had a good lead with 10km to go only to crashed into a bank of stinging nettles. The Scheldeprijs by contrast has had more tactical variety this century. But it wasn’t always this way. The idea of the Flèche Wallonne was to from cross one side of Wallonia to the other, a direct line across the map or a giant arrow, hence the name, the “Walloon Arrow”. It’s been hilly because of geography but most editions have had a flat finish.
Today it’s defined by the vicious Mur finish and rather than an arrow it has almost become a circuit race where the start location varies but sees the race defined by laps around Huy. Huy is a settled point but this owes itself to a historical accident.
In the early 1980s the race was owned by Théo Van Griethuysen, a publisher known for his newspaper Le Sportif 70 which became Le Sportif 80 magazine. He was looking for a new place to host the finish. One day he was driving along the Meuse valley when his car broke down. He called a local hotel and stayed overnight at the Hotel du Fort which belonged to a friend while his car was being repaired. One thing led to another, the hotel owner called over the mayor and talks began and the race finished in Huy. Two years later the Chemin des Chapelles was picked for the finish and soon branded le Mur de Huy, the “wall of Huy”.
It begs the question, would today’s finish up the Mur exist if a car part hadn’t failed one day in 1982?
Race photos: ASO/Thomas Maheux + Gaëtan Flamme
It seems to me that the title “Flèche Wallonne” would better serve as the nickname for a rider than as the name of the race! Problem is that my depth of knowledge of the riders is insufficient to suggest any candidates.
The prime candidate could be Arnaud De Lie but his bovine name seems more apt.
Some people find the current version of Fleche Wallonne hard to understand. I really like it
The Flèche Wallonne is the easiest race to catch up if you missed it. When you see a replay, you don’t really know where to start for most of the races. Here it’s crystal clear.