La Flèche Wallonne

La Flèche Wallonne is a major professional cycle road race held in April each year in Belgium.

The first of two Belgian Ardennes classics, La Flèche Wallonne (the Walloon Arrow) is today normally held mid-week between the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. At one time, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège were run on successive days as "Le Weekend Ardennais". Only five riders have achieved the "Ardennes double" by winning both races in the same year: Ferdi Kubler twice (in 1951 and 1952), Stan Ockers (1955), Eddy Merckx (1972), Moreno Argentin (1991) and Davide Rebellin (2004).

La Flèche Wallonne was created to boost the sales of a newspaper Les Sports during the 1930s and was first run in 1936. While perhaps not as revered as one of the Classic 'Monuments', the race is widely regarded as a Classic, and features on the UCI ProTour.

Like many cycle race events, the course has altered considerably over the years, both in route and length. The event was first run on roads from Tournai to Liège (growing from 236km to 300km – its longest ever distance – in 1938), after which Mons became the starting point. From 1948, the race started at Charleroi; from 1960 the event ran in the opposite direction, starting at Liège and finishing at Charleroi (or, from 1965, Marcinelle). Some years have seen the event start and finish in the same place: Verviers (1974–1978) or Huy (1983–1985). From 1986, the race started in Spa and finished in Huy. Since 1990, the race distance has not exceeded 210km.

Today, the 199.5km event starts in Charleroi and heads east to Huy, where the riders do three laps of a tough circuit including the steep 'Mur de Huy' climb, with several sections steeper than 15%. The finish is at the top of the Mur after the third ascent.

Only three riders have won the race three times, two of them Belgians. Indeed, Belgian riders dominated the early years of the event, winning the first 11 editions of the race, and more than half of the editions in total (36 victories up to and including 2005). Italians have won the event 15 times.

Women's La Flèche Wallonne

Beginning in 1998, a women's race was held in conjunction with the men's race. From the following year onwards, the women's La Flèche Wallonne was a World Cup event. The women raced the same course, but did one less circuit.

Table of winners of La Flèche Wallonne (women)