Decathlon arrived as overwhelming favourites — Itzulia GC win three weeks earlier, Strade Bianche podium in March, the most-watched rider of the spring on his debut at Flèche. Their plan was control, not chaos: rotate the front through the closing 80 km, neutralise long-range threats, deliver Seixas to the base of the Mur in the top five. Worked exactly. Post-race Seixas: 'They gave it their all, 200%, and rode the whole time. Sometimes I had to fend for myself a bit, but they gave it their all.'

Pogačar deliberately skipped Flèche in 2026 to peak for Liège (which he duly won). UAE's protected card on the Mur became Benoît Cosnefroy — the team's most consistent Ardennes second-tier presence over the past three seasons. Fourth on the line, same time as Tulett, on a day the team treated as a recovery operation between the Liège and Roubaix-period bigger bets. With Del Toro also out injured from the Itzulia crash, Cosnefroy was carrying the entire spring's Ardennes weight for UAE.

Ben Tulett — Visma's 22-year-old British climber, ridden to fifth on Itzulia Stage 2 a fortnight earlier — took on Flèche as the team's protected card and rode the wheel beautifully until the gradient eased. Schmid's surge cost him second; the final podium step was still the season's biggest result and a clean validation of Visma's bet on him for the Ardennes block. Jorgenson was the senior support on the day.

Skjelmose held the second-tier chase group through the closing kilometres without ever threatening the front trio. Fifth on the same time as Baudin; the Ardennes week's two-from-three Skjelmose pursuit (he was second at Amstel, sixth ish-time at Liège to come) made him the most consistently top-10 Lidl-Trek Ardennes rider of the spring.

Alex Baudin's sixth on the same time as Skjelmose was the season's first top-10 statement from the French climber EF have built around for the Ardennes. The team's quietly-targeted long-shot card lined up against Seixas's overwhelming-favourite card and finished a couple of seconds back.