The 49th edition of the Amstel Gold Race was characterized by a lot of tactics and prominent failures like those of Andy Schleck, Joaquin Rodriguez or Daniel Martin.
A ten-man breakaway group around Christophe Riblon, which formed shortly after the start, temporarily gained a lead of almost 15 minutes.
As usual, the field let the breakaways do their thing for the time being, before a much more prominent intermediate group went in pursuit of the breakaways. Thomas Voeckler attacked in his unmistakable way on the Kruisberg. Some top-class players like Zdenek Stybar (Omega), Greg Van Avermaert (BMC), Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEdge), Tim Wellens (Lotto Belisol), Paul Martens (Belkin), Alexander Kolobnev ( Katusha) and the Belgian Björn Leukemans (Wanty-Groupe Gobert).
They chased the ever-shrinking leading group at intervals of one to two minutes. As a result, only the Riblon/Van Hecke duo offered resistance at the top.
Since the peloton was also very active - by far not all teams with ambitions were represented in one of the two groups at the front - the lead of the Voeckler group never grew to 30 seconds. Alejandro Valverde in particular sent his Movistar team into the breach. In the final lap it became apparent that both the leading duo would be caught and that the intermediate group would slowly disintegrate. Only Van Avermaert and Fuglsang resisted adamantly and even caught up with Riblon/Van Hecke for a short time. However, the lead of the four is only ten seconds, which is not very promising.
The pace in the main field is so rapid that it was reduced to around 50 drivers when they merged. The rapid descent to Valkenburg heralds an exciting finale. Orica-GreenEgde is in the lead with four men and even tries to ride a wind edge for Simon Gerrans in strong crosswinds.
Shortly before the turn-off to the Cauberg, there are tough fights for positions at high speeds and Samuel Sanchez (BMC) attacks vehemently on the first few meters uphill. This was team tactics, as Gilbert will later admit. Gerrans and Valverde try to follow up and Gilbert launches the all-important counterattack. Similar to his World Championship victory in 2012 at the same place, he built up a lead that proved unassailable after just a few seconds. And so the last two kilometers, which were a little flatter again, turned into a triumph for the Belgian, who celebrated his first major classic victory since the World Championships.
Simon Gerrans was second ahead of Valverde and Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep). Simon Geschke (Giant-Shimano) was a strong sixth, Fabian Wegmann (Garmin-Sharp) fourteenth and Paul Martens finished 26th.
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