The Ardennes continued on Wednesday, with La Flèche Wallonne and its famous finish atop the Mur de Huy. It was a steady start to racing and the day took a normal shape with a six rider group escaping early in the day. However, with just over 100 kilometres to go the skies opened, with snow and heavy rain lashing down on the bunch. Suddenly, the day became a lot more attritional and the bunch split into pieces. The original breakaway was soon caught and with around 60 kilometres to go there were only around 45 riders left in the race; with Kevin Vermaerke and Enzo Leijnse still present for the team. Unfortunately, Vermaerke had to let go of the bunch at around 35 kilometres to go alongside multiple other riders. Leijnse fought hard over terrain that didn’t fully suit his specialities, but the tall Dutchman managed to use his size and power to get over the steep ramps. In the end, Leijnse was part of the reduced peloton which fought it out for the win on Mur de Huy; where he pushed all the way to the line and finished just outside the top 20.
Leijnse expressed: “I think I always do well in this type of weather. Today the plan was to go full for Kevin and give him a shot at it up the Mur de Huy but in conditions like this it is always hard and a lot of the peloton struggled. I was a bit surprised to still be in the group for the finish but I tried to go up the Mur as fast as possible, but the result today is all that I had in my legs. I have to be happy with that and it was nice to up there.”