“Due to the limited time, we couldn’t do too much” - Paris-Roubaix race director Thierry Gouvenou on the last-minute addition of a chicane before the Trouée d’Arenberg

After it was announced that the organisers of Paris-Roubaix would be adding a controversial chicane to the entrance of the Trouée d’Arenberg following advice from the CPA riders’ union, it sparked debate online on whether the new run-in would actually achieve its objective of preventing crashes by slowing down the lead-in to the infamous cobbled sector.

Many argued that the chicane itself would cause crashes and would create an even bigger battle for position before the peloton hit the cobbles, whilst others said that it would be better to crash on tarmac than on the rough cobblestones, as they cited the fact that the riders themselves asked for this change via the CPA.

In an interview with Sporza, the race director Thierry Gouvenou stressed the fact that this would be a temporary change to the route and that they would look for better solutions for the following years, as he said “due to the limited time, we couldn't do too much. So this is a temporary intervention that we can improve. We know the best solution, but that requires road works and you can't do that in three to four days”.

In response to the claims that this change could cause further crashed Gouvenou went on to say that “the bend is very perpendicular and that there will be sudden braking. The last riders run the risk of falling or putting their foot on the ground. But it has been decided that it is preferable to fall that way than to have something like that happen at high speed on cobblestones”.