Nothing is what it seems in this soaking wet edition of Paris-Roubaix

He lies motionless in the grass, bent over, next to a billowing flag on the fence along the Roubaix cycling track. A carer quickly covers Mathieu van der Poel’s stained body with a sponsor jacket. Would the number three in the result hear how the winner rages tens of meters away from him? Sonny Colbrelli is also lying exhausted in the grass, first on his stomach and then on his back. The 31-year-old Italian screams and cries with joy for minutes. “This was a legendary Paris-Roubaix,” he says a few minutes later in a first interview. No lying.

“This is going to be a day for history,” said veteran Sebastian Langeveld before the start on Sunday morning in Compiègne. The 118th edition had to wait 903 days because of corona, it was not in the spring but in the autumn, in a soaking wet ‘Hell of the North’ moreover. After the slipping and falling at the women on Saturday, the shock was great a day later. The last wet Paris-Roubaix was won by Johan Museeuw in 2002, in the current peloton no one has previously ridden thirty cobblestone sections under such harsh conditions. Riders slipped like dominoes, or slid straight from the side of the road into the northern French sugar beet fields.

The Italian Daniel Oss on one of the many muddy cobblestones.
Photo Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP

Anyone who has cherished Hennie Kuiper’s business card for decades, with a photo of the smeared 1983 winner next to his broken bicycle, thought it couldn’t be more spectacular. wrong. The nerve-wracking seconds that Kuiper had to wait for a new bicycle was nothing compared to what happened this year. Already in the first kilometer, still on asphalt, the first crash. It rains for hours and already before the dreaded Forest of Wallers-Arenberg the peloton has split into groups of riders. Their faces are barely recognizable through the gray of the mud, as in old black-and-white times. On the back as a contrast the clean side of their brightly colored shirts.

Retro images

It sometimes seems retro images. Coincidence or not, the French team Delko will ride this edition in the famous ‘Mondriaan shirt’ that Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond made famous in 1985, in the sponsor team La Vie Claire of French businessman Bernard Tapie (78) who died on Sunday. Their Lithuanian leader Evaldas Siskevicius, who was last in 2018 just before the broom wagon and ninth a year later, is one of the early escapees this time. But from the Bos van Wallers-Arenberg, a fixed executioner about 100 kilometers from the finish, the top riders start the hunt for an early leading group.

How can you cycle here, on the skewed boulders, which you can hardly see anymore because of the puddles? Wider tires and less inflation is the fixed recipe under such circumstances. But who isn’t afraid of the glittering cobblestones? Museeuw broke his kneecap here in 1998, every driver knows. But holding back means losing speed, leading to slipping and eventually falling. Van der Poel continues at the head of a group, sends an almost stationary early escape, but the riders behind him have no time to react, collide and fall. Van der Poel’s major competitor Wout van Aert has to chase for kilometers to come back.

Sebastian Langeveld and a few other riders have to avoid a skidded motorcyclist.
Photo Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP

Thirty kilometers further, Van der Poel himself changes bikes, to return to the Van Aert group within two kilometers and attack unbridled. Smoothly accelerating into the corners, it now dances through Hell. He loosely drives everyone out of the wheel and in no time joins a group in front of him, including Colbrelli. He is less than a minute behind the leading group, where Italian Gianni Moscon drove away alone. Almost at the same time, the sun finally breaks through.

Docking on cobblestones

After his fall at the Games and a forced break due to a back injury, Van der Poel was able to settle for eighth place at the World Cup in Leuven a week ago. Now only the profit counts. Will this be another example of world class, like earlier this year in the Strade Bianche and the Tour de France? Moscon, already fifth in Paris-Roubaix, docks very strongly on the cobblestones at the front at 40 kilometers from the finish line. Van der Poel does not come any closer, even loses something. In Ineos’ car, sports director Servais Knaven gives his thumbs up. The winner of an already harsh edition in 2001 will know as an experience expert, right? Moscow is going to win.

But in this bizarre Paris-Roubaix, nothing is as it seems. Moscon feels his rear tire deflate, has to change bikes due to the ‘slop’ and hears that the pursuers, led by Van der Poel, are approaching. His spare bike turns out to have harder tires, there he slips away in the mud. The Italian bravely holds out for another ten kilometers but sees Van der Poel, Colbrelli and the surprising Belgian Florian Vermeersch come alongside on the life-threatening cobblestone strip of Carrefour de l’Arbre. Striking: not Van der Poel but Colbrelli is in the lead here.

Sonny Colbrelli wins the final sprint in Roubaix.
Photo Michel Spingler/AP

It is phenomenal how, after 250 kilometers of hardship, ‘MvdP’ still steers hundreds of meters long over an edge of barely a decimeter wide. Precisely on the strip near Hem, where Kuiper was screaming for a new bicycle in 1983 with his broken rear wheel. But does Van der Poel still have enough energy to win the sprint of three debutants?

Vermeersch, only 22, takes on the final sprint on the velodrome in Roubaix. Colbrelli is clearly the fastest and beats the Belgian by a bicycle length. Van der Poel finishes third. “I am happy with it,” said the Dutchman afterwards for Belgian TV. “I raced the way I like it best. This was my first time here. It was one to frame and never forget.”

source https://pledgetimes.com/nothing-is-what-it-seems-in-this-soaking-wet-edition-of-paris-roubaix/