Astana's Maxim Iglinskiy won the 257.5km Liège - Bastogne - Liège classic race this afternoon.
Over 200 riders took part in this race, although that number dropped by one when Igor Anton (Euskaltel-Euskadi) crashed and broke his collarbone before the race had officially started.
After 40kms, the first break of the day came and saw Dario Cataldo (Omega Pharma - Quick Step), Simon Geschke (Argos-Shimano) and Kevin Ista (Accent Jobs - Veranda's Willems) take off before being joined by Reiner Honig (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony), Grégory Habeaux (Accent Jobs - Veranda's Willems) and Alessandro Bazzana (Team Type 1 - Sanofi).
They got up to twelve minutes in front but Katusha started to put the hammer down and as the race left Bastogne on the return leg, the gap started to drop.
Philippe Gilbert was amongst those chasing as the escapers started to be swept up by the peloton but had to follow Vicente Nibali who shot off with 19kms remaining.
He stayed out in front until the flam rouge when Maxim Iglinskiy, powered past him and took the victory in a time of 6.43.52, some 21 seconds ahead of Nibali and third placed Enrico Gasperotto with Ireland's Daniel Martin putting in a great ride to finish fifth.
Nicholas Roche was 105th whilst Matt Brammier did not finish along with Team Sky's Brit Luke Rowe.