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| - British rider Lizzie Deignan won the women's Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Sunday after a solo break with 24 kilometres to go. Deignan, formerly Armitstead, was chased home by Australian Grace Brown, who finished 10 seconds back, while Dutch rider Ellen van Dijk outsprinted the rest of the original breakaway group to take third. "I expected to win a classic like this one, I have often been there, but I often just missed," said Deignan who was second in 2017 and seventh last year. "Winning a classic is very special. I am really happy." Deignan, the 2015 world champion, escaped from a nine-rider breakaway group on the climb of la Redoute. She quickly built a gap of one minute which Brown, chasing hard, could not quite close. Deignan, who rides for Trek-Segafredo, said her strategy was to make sure she got to the famous Redoubt climb ahead of Dutch stars Annemiek van Vleuten, last year's winner and runner up in the World Championships last week, and Anna van der Breggen, double winner of the event (2017 and 2018) and winner of the Fleche Wallonne in the middle of the week. "Our philosophy at Trek is to ride on instinct and not be afraid of failure," she said. "I had to be on la Redoute before Annemiek and Anna." The plan worked perfectly as Deignan was part of a breakaway group that formed around 50 kilometres from the finish on the climb at de la Vecquee that surprised van der Breggen and van Vleuten clv/pb/lp
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