14/04/2023

"It's a disgrace for the race" - Stijn Steels argues that Trouée d'Arenberg has become too dangerous in it's current form

Cyclist Stijn Steels has harshly criticised in the podcast De Tribune de Sporza the peloton's passage through the Arenberg forest during the last Paris-Roubaix. The Belgian believes that it is too dangerous. This is what he said in a statement published by the AS newspaper:

"A whole peloton is travelling at 60 km/h when it enters the forest, where it is already difficult to keep going straight on those stones. At the slightest bad maneuver, everyone can go down in a crash. I am against the race going through the Arenberg Forest." This year the ambitions of defending champion Dylan van Baarle, as well as Kasper Asgreen and Fred Wright ended as several riders went down hard in the peloton.

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"It's a disgrace for the race, because you go too fast, you fall and then you break things. In the Arenberg Forest you have very little to gain, you can only lose. On a monument you've been preparing for for months you shouldn't be looking for extra danger," he argues.

The former pro gave a graphic example of the drama of the Arenberg passage of Paris-Roubaix by talking about what happened to Mitchell Docker in recent years: "Mitchell Docker was on the ground at the time and I couldn't see his face. His teeth were broken, his eyebrow was broken, his tongue was torn.... What the hell are we doing? If it was put further down the stretch, it would be better, because the selection would have been made."

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His voice echoes other opinions on what is the most famous cobbled sector of the French monument. Steels does not want Arenberg to be removed from the Roubaix route, he is aware of its importance, but he asks the organisers to make it go in the opposite direction, uphill, in order to make it less dangerous:

"The Arenberg Forest and Paris-Roubaix cannot exist without each other, so they could do it in the opposite direction. I think it was done that way after the fall of Museeuw. You pass it and you keep this difficult section, but it becomes safer going up. I think every year the races are getting destroyed," he concluded.