ALEXANDRE Vinokourov won the final classic of the spring season this afternoon, the Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
The Kazakh's rehabilitation from a doping ban continued when the Astana man rode Russian Alexander Kolobnev (Katusha) off his wheel in the final few hundred metres.
The pair had made a break with only a handful of kilometres left in La Doyenne, the oldest and grandest of the big one-day races. There was a spirited attack by Amstel Gold victor Phillipe Gilbert but it was not the Belgian's day and he came in fifth behind Alessandro Valverde and Cadel Evans.
The race had provided plenty of attacking moves from the big names as they tackled the short, sharp climbs that characterise the event, but in the end it was brute power that settled it.
The riders' focus now switches to the first of this year's grand tours, the Giro d'Italia, which begins on May 8.
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