It is the only one-day World Tour race staged in the Netherlands and is considered the most important Dutch road cycling event.

The event is organised on the same day and on largely the same roads as the men's race and is part of the UCI Women's World Tour.

[4] Krott and Vissers had neglected the many rivers along the route and miscalculated the zigzags needed to cross them, making the intended distance far longer than 280 km.

New plans were made to start in Utrecht, then Rotterdam; and to stage an alternative finish in the small village of Meerssen in Limburg.

Moreover, less than three weeks before the start, organizers realized they had not obtained permission to cross the Moerdijk Bridge, the only exit route out of Rotterdam.

On top of all that, the Dutch militant hippy counterculture movement Provo had declared a state of anarchy in the Netherlands in 1966.

Dutchman Jan Hugens suffered a mechanical failure in the final meters and was beaten by Frenchman Jean Stablinski who won the inaugural edition.

Despite its original intent, the Amstel Gold Race has never started in Amsterdam; nor in Rotterdam or Utrecht, three of The Netherlands' largest cities.

[N 5] In 1967 the start location moved to Helmond, in front of sponsor Amstel's headquarters, and the distance was scaled back to 213 km.

The race was affected by severe snow and hailstorms, forcing many riders to abandon due to hypothermia.

Merckx started and won the Amstel Gold Race more than three minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.

In the late 1970s Dutchman Jan Raas won the Amstel Gold Race a record five times, of which four were consecutive.

Only two Dutch riders, Michael Boogerd and Erik Dekker, have won the race in the last two decades before Mathieu van der Poel's win in 2019.

The Belgian won the race four times between2010 and 2017, basing his victories on late bursts of speed and power on the Cauberg.

In 2015 Polish rider Michał Kwiatkowski became the first reigning world champion to win the race since Bernard Hinault in 1981.

[17] Although the Netherlands are known for their flat, wind-affected roads, the Amstel Gold Race takes place in the hilly southern region of Limburg.

The race's inaugural edition started in Breda in North Brabant, but quickly moved closer to the hilly region.

Since 2005 the race is run entirely within the boundaries of Dutch Limburg, except right after the Vaalserberg climb, there is a short passage through Gemmenich in Belgium.

Past editions in the 90’s had covered significant parts of Liège in Belgium, addressing the Mount Saint Peter, meant to include a larger selection of climbs.

The finale was redesigned in 2013 and the finish was moved west, near the hamlets of Vilt and Berg en Terblijt, 1.8 kilometres from the top of the Cauberg.

Until 2002, the Amstel Gold Race had a more flat run-in to the finish and was sometimes won by riders excelling in the cobbled classics, notably the Tour of Flanders.

The hills define the character of the race: they are generally shorter and not as high as in the Ardennes, but come in much higher frequency than in Liège–Bastogne–Liège.

The present course features more than 30 short climbs which come in faster succession as the race progresses, meaning riders have little time to recover in between the hills.

[22] Attempting to explain the difficulty of the course Peter Easton recounts a mathematician's calculations: ...applying logic to overcome a sense of incomprehension is the key to understanding this race.