This season's Amsted Golden Race kicked off yesterday (April 10) in the Netherlands, where Micha Kwiatkowski, nicknamed "Hanging Koski", narrowly defeated AG2R Citroën's Beno t Cosnefroy by a narrow advantage over AG2R Citroen to win the tournament and the second Amstel Gold Championship of his career.
How similar is this scene. At last year's Amsted Gold Race, Jumbo's Wout van Aert also won the championship by narrowly defeating Ineos' Tom Pidcock.
The Amstyst Golden Race, Arrow of Wallonia, Liège - Baston - Liège these three events are also known as the "Ardennes Three Races", is an important part of the spring classic race, characterized by a lot of short slopes in the schedule, this season's race route, the organizers marked more than 30 short slopes.
This year's race did not have a too luxurious lineup of drivers, and Bogacha, who has been a strong fried chicken this season, did not participate in this year's race. In addition, top-notch drivers such as "Shanghainese" Ala Philippe, one of the "double fans", and Rogolić, the triple crown winner of the West Tour, did not participate, so the biggest hit this year was Van der Puer, one of the other "double fans".
This year's race, with a total mileage of 254 kilometers, was broken by a small group of 6 people at the beginning of the race, and at one point widened the second difference to 7 minutes.
Due to the narrow route and many curves, falling is a regular event in most classical races, and the event was affected by drivers such as Andrea Bagioli, Anthony Turgis, Jack Haig, Nathan Van Hooydonck and others.
Less than 45 kilometres before the finish line, the Ineos team began to pick up speed, recalling all the drivers of the leading group 35 kilometres before the finish line.
On the Keutenberg section 34km before the finish line, the offensive horn of the race was sounded and the championship group of the day was born in this wave of attacks, in addition to the first and second hanging Koski and Koneferroy, but also Mathieu van der Poel, Kasper Asgreen, Tiesj Benoot, Thomas Pidcock), Michael Matthews and other drivers.
In the subsequent climb, Hirsh and Pidcock attacked one after another, but to no avail. When it came to the downhill section, the driver of the hangko launched an attack and successfully broke through, and then koneferrois also broke out and tightly bit the hangco driver. Although the rest of the title-contending group struggled to catch up in the later stages, the two broke through strongly all the way and maintained their lead all the way to the end.
As a result, the finish sprint became a double stage between the hangko driver and koneferroy, and the 250 meters before the finish line, Koneferroy took the lead in the sprint, and the hangko driver followed closely behind, and they passed the finish line shoulder to shoulder with a gap that was difficult to distinguish with the naked eye. At one point, Cornefroy confidently believed that he had won, and the people at the scene began to hug and celebrate, while the driver saw Thateflois was celebrating and was not sure if he had won, and there was no movement.
After crossing the finish line, even the media has begun interviews with Koneferroy. However, the good times were not long, the replay of the big screen came out, and through the photos of the high-speed camera, it can be seen that the hangke driver won the victory with an advantage of only a few centimeters, and he made a big oolong, and his face was full of embarrassment under the camera lens, and he could only leave the scene with a bitter smile. The Ineos motorcade, which learned of this, was jubilant and embraced together.
Edit: Johnny
Image source: Amst Golden Race State Media