After finishing his spring campaign on the podium in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Demi Vollaring will be behind Annemiek van Vleuten in the final of the Ardennes Classics.

Volering sprinted to third place in Liège, 43 seconds behind the leader of Movistar, which regained the La Doyenne crown last year by finishing second behind Volering.

Finally, Van Vleuten made a decisive attack on the Côte de la Roche aux Faucons, the last climb of the day, to pull away from attacker Grace Brown (FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope).

"I tried to catch her on the climb because there is a drag after the climb.

"That's always a bit of a struggle for me. I thought, 'Yeah, it's really hard to get her back,' but I kept trying and then the downhills started and it was really hard to get her back. She was just too strong today."

Volering explained that on another day she might have been able to keep up with Van Vleuten's attack, and said that if her period had come on time, she might have enjoyed the increased fitness caused by her period.

"I think my form was really great, but I'm a woman and I expected my period to be here. 'My period was supposed to come two weeks before and my legs were always bad before that. When my period starts, and when it ends, it gets really strong. [Sometimes your period comes at the right time, sometimes it doesn't. If it had, I might have been able to do well today, but this time it wasn't. Still, I'm happy that I played well in the spring."

Vollering's team had seen Swiss champion Reusser go on the attack. Leuther was the strongest of the group and continued to lead until the final.

At La Redoute, Reusser joined Van Vleuten and the two briefly moved to the front, but Braun countered with a roche-aux-Faucons. After the race, Reusser explained that everything had gone according to plan for the team, except for Brown's move and Van Vleuten's winning attack.

"It went according to plan," he said. We had a very strong team at the start which allowed us to try all the cards." The plan worked perfectly

"We missed Grace Brown's attack. That was the mistake of the day, but I think we had a good team effort.

"Not today, but yes another day," Reusser said of the team's ability to match Van Vleuten. Reusser said of the team's ability to match Van Vleuten: "I think it was a good day. With Grace Brown's attack, everyone was looking to chase us.

After Van Vleuten jumped out, her advantage held around 15 seconds on the run-in, and she jumped out in the last 5 km. Brown and FDJ teammate Marta Cavalli, along with her teammate Ashley Moolman Passio and Trek Segafredo's Elisa Longo Borghini joined the chase.

"The last 10km is a bit of a downhill, so it's really hard to get anyone back there. You need to run the gas pedal at full throttle and everyone in the group needs to give 100%."

"Sometimes this group worked well, sometimes not so well. But I'm glad Ashley was there. She did a really great job, but I think we were missing a big engine like Marlen, for example.

Nevertheless, Vollering and her team can rejoice in a great spring campaign, as Vollering's victory in Brabantspaille was the top Classics result, along with Lotte Kopecký's wins in Strade Bianche and Tour of Flanders!

"We are very pleased with the results of this year's Tour of Flanders.

"It's been a great spring," said Coppecke. 'When have we ever not been on the podium? For us it was a very, very great spring.