2025 Flèche Wallonne Race Report: Puck Pieterse finally took her big victory of the spring. The Fenix-Deceuninck rider won the women’s Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday ahead of Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) at two seconds and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) at six.
2025 Women’s Flèche Wallonne highlights
The 2025 Route
There was quite a bit of criticism of the 2024 route, mainly due to the Côte de Cherave being removed. In the past, especially in the women’s race, things have really started on this climb just before the Mur de Huy. But now the Cherave is back. The rest of the route has also been changed considerably. Instead of a south-western approach circuit, this year it comes from the south-eastern approach. This runs counter-clockwise. After the first flat kilometres along the banks of the Meuse, it climbs for the first time. The Côte de Bohissau is 2.2km at 5.5%, but after the mountain points have been awarded, it goes a bit further. 5km at 4.1% would be closer to the truth.
2025 Flèche Wallonne map
Via Havelange, Maffe and Baillonville, the route continues on almost continuously undulating roads towards Durbuy. Just before the ‘smallest city in the world’, a left turn is made for the next climb: the Côte de Petite Somme (1.2km at 8%). This isn’t the whole story either, because after the KOM, there is an annoying offshoot. In addition, the section immediately before the KOM line is quite steep, with a gradient of 15% to 16% on the steepest part. All this uphill ensures that the riders have already climbed 1,250 metres in the run-up phase of 78.5 kilometres. There was still 1,050 metres of climbing to go, all on the circuit with three climbs: the Côte d’Ereffe, the Cherave and the Mur.
2025 Flèche Wallonne profile
The Côte d’Ereffe is the first climb on the circuit. This is 2.1km at 5%. A nice warm-up. The last eight kilometres of the race will be decisive. Starting with the Côte de Cherave (1.3km at 8.1%), then descending towards Huy and the final killer to the finish line.
The weather wasn’t as good as last weekend in Amstel
Seven-time Flèche Wallonne winner, Anna van der Breggen, had to give the 2025 edition a miss. The 35-year-old Van der Breggen was struggling with the after-effects of an illness and couldn’t start the Walloon classic. Despite Van der Breggen’s absence, there was an impressive field was at the start in Huy on Wednesday afternoon, with Vollering, Lotte Kopecky, Elisa Longo Borghini, Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Puck Pieterse.
Anne Knijnenburg was solo for a long time
In a very wet Ardennes, there were many attacks in the first hour of racing, but all were short-lived. Maaike Coljé and Anne van Rooijen went on the attack for a while, as did Julie De Wilde, but none were a real early break. Behind them, the peloton was shrinking.
Cédrine Kerbaol also tried
Anne Knijnenburg did manage to get away with 72 kilometres to go and was off the front for a long time. The Dutch rider was joined, after almost 20 kilometres, by Cédrine Kerbaol, but she was dropped with 45 kilometres to go and also couldn’t hold onto the peloton shortly afterwards. Kerbaol managed to stay off the front for a long time. But on the Côte de Cherave, with 7 kilometres to go, she was caught.
The peloton was getting smaller
About 35 riders, including all the big names, eventually started the final climb of the Mur de Huy. French champion Juliette Labous set the pace in the group of favourites in the first few hundred metres of the Mur, while Lotte Kopecky had to let go quite early.
Pieterse put in her attack after Vollering
With 300 metres to go, Vollering launched her attack. However, Pieterse managed to follow and then put in an attack of her own, after which Vollering cracked. Although the difference between Vollering and Pieterse never really that big, Pieterse was the clear winner on the summit of the Mur de Huy. After a strong spring full of top places, the Dutch rider finally secured her big Classics victory.
A big win for Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)
Race winner, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck): “In a race like this, it was actually quite easy to stay calm because I think almost all the teams wanted to wait until the last climb. So it was just a case of waiting and I knew that before, so we tried to just wait a lot and just stay active during the race, not falling asleep before important points, but luckily the team was always there to give me a good lead out. Demi (Vollering) got a really good lead out from Juliette (Labous) and I decided to stick on the wheel and just wait, wait, wait a bit longer and then I think halfway through the Mur, I was like, ‘they should be hurting a lot’, but I still felt quite good actually. I knew I just had to wait until around 150 metres to go to really make the next acceleration. After that, I did not look back, so I don’t know how close it was in the end.”
The 2025 Flèche Wallonne podium – Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ), Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ)
# All the Flèche Wallonne news in EUROTRASH Thursday. #
Flèche Wallonne Result:
1. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck in 3:53:25
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ-SUEZ at 0:02
3. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team ADQ at 0:06
4. Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto
5. Liane Lippert (Ger) Movistar at 0:11
6. Kimberley Le Court de Billot (Maur) AG Insurance-Soudal at 0:14
7. Juliette Labous (Fra) FDJ-SUEZ at 0:15
8. Nienke Vinke (Ned) Team Picnic PostNL
9. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZ) Lidl-Trek at 0:20
10. Mijntje Geurts (Ned) Visma | Lease a Bike.
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