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  "description": "Riding into the final two races of the spring like...",
  "path": "/wheel-talk-newsletter-only-two-classics-left/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-21T16:19:58.000Z",
  "site": "https://escapecollective.com",
  "tags": [
    "Paula Blasi solos to victory at Amstel Gold RaceNiewiadoma-Phinney and Vollering sprinted for second after the reduced peloton left it too late to close the gap to the lone leader.Escape CollectiveAbby Mickey",
    "The prodigious rise of Paula Blasi, Amstel Gold Race winnerThe 23-year-old former duathlete only started racing two years ago. Now she’s an Amstel Gold Race winner.Escape CollectiveMatt de Neef",
    "check here closer to the race",
    "Subscribe now"
  ],
  "textContent": "Gruber Images\n\nEvery year it creeps up on us... the end of the Classics. One day, you're in the thick of it, getting excited about the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix Femmes, and the next day, there are only three one-day races left before stage racing season kicks off. With the Amstel Gold Race behind us, all we have left now are La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège before we turn our attention to La Vuelta Femenina on May 3. Time flies.\n\n* * *\n\n## **First things first: Reactions to the Amstel Gold Race finale**\n\nPaula Blasi's win at the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday was nothing short of extraordinary. Partly, it was due to how well timed the attack of SD Worx-Protime's Nienke Vinke was. Her move, which Blasi followed, came after a flurry of attacks from big-name riders of the same team. At some point, if the attacks continued, the elastic was going to break. It just so happened that it was Vinke's move that broke it. The Dutch rider is very strong, but as she is somewhat less of a threat than Anna van der Breggen and Lorena Wiebes, who had been attacking before her, the move was able to get some distance.\n\nPaula Blasi solos to victory at Amstel Gold RaceNiewiadoma-Phinney and Vollering sprinted for second after the reduced peloton left it too late to close the gap to the lone leader.Escape CollectiveAbby Mickey\n\nIt was a moment in the race when a lot of teams needed to reconvene, to see where things stood and which riders they had left. No one knew that Blasi was going to slip away from Vinke and ride to the finish alone.\n\nBlasi may be a relatively unknown rider, seeing as she's new on the scene, but it wasn't necessarily an under-calculation by the teams behind that opened the door for her first major victory.\n\nThe prodigious rise of Paula Blasi, Amstel Gold Race winnerThe 23-year-old former duathlete only started racing two years ago. Now she’s an Amstel Gold Race winner.Escape CollectiveMatt de Neef\n\nMultiple riders after the race gave Blasi kudos for her strength and for the effort, including last year's winner, Mischa Bredewold.\n\n“I am generally content, although we were hoping for a bit more,\" Bredewold told  _Wielerflits_. \"To do that, you do need to have just slightly better legs. I think one rider was a cut above the rest.”\n\nBredewold's teammate Vinke said that when Blasi attacked, she had been trying to shift gears and wasn't able to follow the move.\n\n\"It’s a shame I couldn’t follow. I actually didn’t expect her to attack there. It’s better to be away together,\" Vinke said.\n\nVan der Breggen, who had tried to force a move with 35 km to go, explained why SD Worx-Protime hadn't been the team to chase Blasi down once Vinke had been distanced.\n\n“There were five other riders from Lidl-Trek in our group, and Demi Vollering also had two teammates supporting her,\" Van der Breggen told  _Sporza_. \"That is normally a good situation, but the lead just wouldn’t shrink. She [Blasi] simply rode an incredibly good race.”\n\nVinke, after she was dropped, hovered between the peloton and Blasi for the remainder of the race. She was only brought back as the peloton hit the Cauberg for the final time. It was a curious move, leaving her out there for so long, instead of calling her back to the group to work for Bredewold and Van der Breggen. As Van der Breggen said, Lidl-Trek had the numbers in that group. The former world champion expected the German team to work harder to reduce the gap, something her former teammate Demi Vollering echoed.\n\n\"Lidl-Trek were also still there with a lot of riders. I was kind of gambling on Lidl-Trek starting to chase a bit earlier, and us working together to keep the gap smaller. But in the end, Blasi was really strong today because my teammates were really riding hard. She could simply not be brought back,\" Vollering said after the race.\n\n\"I have mixed feelings. It is a bit of a shame, especially when you can make the difference on the climb in the end, and there’s still a solo rider in front. But we got everything out of it as a team today. And ultimately, you cannot jump after everything. At some point, you choose to let somebody ride. And that turned out to be the wrong choice,\" Vollering told _NOS_.\n\nKasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, who finished second on the day after outsprinting Vollering, highlighted how hard the Amstel Gold Race is, something Vollering agreed with in her interview.\n\n\"I think that Amstel is honestly known for being one of the most stressful Classics, just because there are a lot of important sections, there are a lot of things on the road, and you feel massive tension in the bunch because everyone wants to be in the front,\" Niewiadoma-Phinney explained.\n\n\"Then you have the section of four hard, steep climbs, and of course it's still far to go, because it's still 80 km to go when that's finished.\"\n\n\"On the one hand, it is a hard circuit, but on the other hand, it’s also not quite hard enough. It is hard to go earlier; if you fire your arrows too early, you might fall short on the Cauberg,\" Vollering said.\n\n\"The attacks started, a bunch of different attacks on and off. I just tried to draft and stay behind Demi or Anna van der Breggen and wait for the right moment to go,\" Niewiadoma-Phinney said. \"It's just a pity that we were not fighting for the victory in the back anymore.\"\n\nWhen it comes to La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, it's expected that Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney will go head-to-head once again. For the Polish champion, the isolation she's been experiencing in the pointy end of races might put her on the back foot for Wednesday's race, given how important the run-in to the base of the Mur de Huy is... but she's gotten pretty good at putting herself in the right place without any teammates.\n\n* * *\n\n## **Racing continues...**\n\nAt La Flèche Wallonne!\n\nA full preview for Liège-Bastogne-Liège will be available later in the week when they have at least some semblance of a start list. For now, here's a brief preview ahead of La Flèche Wallonne:\n\n**When** : Wednesday, April 22 at 13:40 CET\n\n**Where** : Huy to Huy (148.2 km)\n\n**Live coverage** : 🇦🇺 SBS @ +1 00:45 AEST, 🇪🇺 HBOMax @ 16:45 CEST, 🇬🇧HBOMax @ 15:45 BST, 🇺🇸🇨🇦 FloBikes @ 7:45 PDT\n\n## The favourites\n\n⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Demi Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot\n⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: ...\n⭐️⭐️⭐️: Anna van der Breggen, Puck Pieterse\n⭐️⭐️: Noemi Rüegg, Niamh Fisher-Black\n⭐️: Femke de Vries, Maeva Squiban\n\n*_Start list is not official, so all Star Ratings above are subject to change. For the full official start list,_ check here closer to the race_._\n\n### This post is for subscribers only\n\nBecome a member to get access to all content\n\nSubscribe now",
  "title": "Wheel Talk Newsletter: Only two Classics left?",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-21T16:20:01.300Z"
}