Car of Jasper Stuyven's wife looted during Paris-Roubaix Femmes: "I was so disappointed in this world"

While Jasper Stuyven crashed early on in Paris-Roubaix and ultimately finished 95th, his wife Elke Bleyaert had an even worse ordeal that weekend. She went to watch Pauline Ferrand-Prévot's first road comeback victory at Paris-Roubaix Femmes, but after the race she found her car completely looted.

When Bleyaert and her friends returned to the car, they foudnd it broken into with two bikes, a laptop, suitcase and backpack stolen. Bleyaert spent two hours at a police station but "quickly realised" there was little hope in ever recovering her lost items. Especially when the police told her "welcome to Roubaix" as if "we should just accept that this is normal".

"Some assholes broke into our cars and stole our bikes," she later wrote on social media. "They also took my suitcase, my backpack and bag with cycling clothes... everything. My heart was broken. I was so disappointed in this world. In my backpack was my laptop and my hard drive... These two together are literally my entire world. I work from everywhere. And all my work for the last three years was in here."

"We had no choice but to park our cars in a street near the parking lot. We covered everything as best we could: I put a blanket over my bike, suitcase and backpack and even threw some random coats on top of it, so it looked like it was a mess in the car."

Bleyaert said the "most frustrating part" was that she could track her laptop to a location one kilometre away through an app on her phone, but the police did not want to do anything as it "did not count as proof".

"They said they would keep an eye on that house and street but two days later and we still have no news," she said, explaining how the street they parked on had been "quite busy" with "lots of cars and people passing".

Pre-empting those who, like the police, would point out how notoriously dangerous Roubaix can be, Bleyaert responded: "Of course we did [know that there are often thefts during Roubaix weekend]... but when you are at an event you would at least expect some extra surveillance on the streets. We rode the sportive in the morning and were invited to watch Paris-Roubaix Femmes in the afternoon. The parking was full in the morning so we had no choice but to leave our cars in the street."