In the tenth and toughest edition of the Walloon classic, the riders faced ten categorised climbs and over 2,800 metres of elevation gain. Femke de Vries showed an attacking spirit and found herself in a breakaway group on several occasions. However, the pace in the peloton remained consistently high, meaning no group was given any room to break away.

On the slopes of the Côte de la Redoute, Demi Vollering accelerated. The Dutch rider slowly but surely pulled away from her rivals and reached the finish after a 30-kilometre solo breakaway. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot wasn't able to follow on the Redoute and ended up in a second chasing group, which also included Femke de Vries and Sarah Van Dam.

Van Dam eventually finished in thirteenth place, while Ferrand-Prévot came 22nd. “It was really tough today. I felt empty and didn’t have the legs needed to play a part in the final", the Frenchwoman said. "The team did a really good job keeping me at the front the whole day. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t to be today."

Sports director Jos van Emden looks back on a difficult day. "We’d been really looking forward to this race, but we have to admit that we weren’t good enough today. We couldn’t match the standard set by Demi and her team. We’re now going to focus on the Vuelta and hope to perform better there."