"I was hoping van der Poel would bring us back" - Laurence Pithie crashed, lost a lens, hit a spectator and promises to return

At Paris-Roubaix, control is always an illusion. The Hell of the North has a way of turning fortune on its head and for Laurence Pithie, the reckoning was as brutal as it was sudden.

“I don't really know what to say, to be honest,” he told cyclingnews outside the Red Bull - Bora - Hansgrohe bus in Roubaix, already showered but still visibly shaken.

Until then, everything had clicked. After a difficult Classics campaign, the New Zealander was riding into form at exactly the right time. He made the decisive eight-man move on Pont Gibus - the group that would shape the race - and looked at ease over the cobbles, gliding while others fought for survival. A podium in Roubaix was no longer a distant dream. It was taking shape.

A puncture with 78 kilometres to go forced a messy bike change. Pithie managed to fight his way back, linking up with teammate Jordi Meeus and, briefly, even with the eventual winner Wout van Aert.

But the race was beginning to slip. “That’s where it all started going downhill,” he said. “Contact lens fell out, crashed on Mons-en-Pevele, crashed again… it was a bit of a mess.”

The moment that truly derailed his race came on sector 12, with just over 50 kilometres remaining. A contact lens was blown out, a small detail with massive consequences on terrain.

“Sometimes with the wind, when you look back, it just flies out,” Pithie explained. “It's only happened once before, but I mean, it's just annoying because one side of the vision is clear and the other side is blurry."

“So, yeah, obviously I wasn't taking the best lines. It would have played a part [in the crash].”

What followed was inevitable. On Mons-en-Pévèle, one of the race’s sectors, Pithie hit the deck heavily while navigating a left-hand corner at the back of a chasing group led by Mathieu van der Poel, who was driving the pursuit of Van Aert and Tadej Pogacar up the road.

“I still felt pretty good at that point. I was just on the back of that group, hoping Van der Poel would do the work to bring us back. I still had hope to be in the mix, but yeah, it was game over.”

The chaos didn’t end there. In the aftermath, Pithie was involved in another incident, this time with a spectator.

“I hit a spectator on the side, coming out of a corner. I mean, the spectator was pretty close. We were going super fast, and yeah, I just ploughed straight into them. They were a little bit too close on the corner, over the road."

“We're going so fast, it happens. I hope they're okay, to be honest, because they didn't sound too good on the ground while I was trying to get up and go again.”

By then, any hope of a top result had vanished. Still, Pithie pressed on, reaching the Roubaix velodrome and eventually crossing the line in 26th place.

A result that hardly reflects the ride he had in his legs. “It's disappointing, but it is what it is, it's bike racing. This is such a crazy race. So much stuff happens. You need to have a bit of luck,” he said.

The frustration was clear, but so was the hunger. “I’ll be back next year. I still love this race. I didn't even make it to the cobbles last year because of the crash, so, yeah, this will only fuel the fire for next year.”