🏆 Back to back win for 🌈 @mathieuvdpoel, he is the king of #ParisRoubaix😈 🏆 🌈 @mathieuvdpoel est le roi de Roubaix ! Il conserve son titre !
Pedal Punditry #4 | Paris-Roubaix: Great riders make for boring racing... And that's fine to admit
CyclingMonday, 08 April 2024 at 08:39
Paris-Roubaix is every year the single race that excites me the most. In my eyes it is above the World Championships in terms of spectacle, above the Tour de France in terms of emotion... But this year it was far from exciting. I think it's fine to admit that.
This of course being my own opinion. The 2024 Paris-Roubaix was a disappointment when it comes to great racing and it was sadly the culmination of a cobbled classics season that has often displayed the same. In fact, I have begun writing this with the race still ongoing, with 20 kilometers to go. At this time Gianni Vermeersch, the third strongest Alpecin-Deceuninck rider, is bridging across to the chasing group with Mathieu van der Poel's biggest rivals.
In that group is Jasper Philipsen, last year's second place, who has followed the very same tactics en route to another impressive collective performance from Alpecin-Deceuninck. That group is almost an entire three minutes behind Mathieu van der Poel, arguably the strongest rider of the day by a margin that is hard to grasp. This is a very similar emotion to last week's Tour of Flanders I would argue, where van der Poel was the main favourite for the day, Alpecin-Deceuninck comfortably controlled the race until the Koppenberg, and when the World Champion attacked with seriousness no-one was even close to being able to follow.
What followed was an hour of racing where my main focus was on António Morgado's comeback, and the frankly exciting fight for the podium which had several contenders including a few very unexpected figures. For second place, one of the best races you could think of. But for the win it was barely a race anymore, fruit of a wonderkid turned cycling legend in Mathieu van der Poel.
Strade Bianche. Tadej Pogacar starts as the main favourite, even though it is his first race day of the season. At the famous Monte Sante Marie, with 81 kilometers to go, the UAE Team Emirates rider launched a seated attack and gets a gap over the rest of the field. Thrilling! Brave! For 1, 2, 5... 10 minutes... Then it wears off. There are 75 kilometers to the beautiful climb of Via Santa Caterina and the scenic finale at the Piazza del Campo but the winner is - unless a bad and spring-ending crash happens, which one never hopes for - already decided. The gap grows and grows, it matters to nothing if his gap over the chasers is of 2 or 3 or 4 minutes; it just doesn't matter. Tadej Pogacar's performance at Strade Bianche was historic, but it kills the race. Van der Poel's win at the Tour of Flanders was expected, but boring.
Roubaix is a special day. The early start, the extensive fight for the breakaway, the dozens of riders who can fight for the win on a good day or even benefit from the breakaway to create the ultimate surprise... It's the highest level race where at the start a huge surprise can legitimately be expected. The excitement rolled on in the start and opening kilometers as the riders averaged over 50Km/h and the tailwind favoured the breakaway. The mass crash that happened early on put a dent into the spectacle, as Jonathan Milan - part of Lidl-Trek, the only team I realistically believed could match Alpecin on the day - lost it's dark horse and most dangerous outsider. The race became more of a man-on-man, which in current form, makes it very hard for anyone to beat van der Poel even on a race that doesn't feature climbs.
Alpecin-Deceuninck dominated since early on, with no team coming close. Alpecin is often actually on the back foot against other collectives but Visma arrived in Roubaix without the injured Wout van Aert and Jan Tratnik, the ill Matteo Jorgenson and Dylan van Baarle, and with Christophe Laporte out of form and puncturing out of contention right in the first sector. Visma out of the game, Lidl decimated (with Jasper Stuyven also absent), the other teams simply not having the horsepower to make the difference. Gianni Vermeersch followed comfortably a strong attack from Nils Politt and Stefan Küng which could actually be quite interesting, just as he had with Mads Pedersen's suicidal attack in Flanders.
Van der Poel and Philipsen were completely comfortable in the wheel. Philipsen did puncture after Arenberg but returned without too much trouble, whilst the World Champion just glided in the wheels until he wanted to strike. He eventually did so with 59 kilometers to go, again with no-one close to matching. Van der Poel won Paris-Roubaix and had an entire two minutes to celebrate and then watch his closest competitors enter the velodrome, fighting for the second place which - exactly the same as last year - was taken by teammate and Milano-Sanremo winner Jasper Philipsen. It's not about the second consecutive one-two, it's the fact that at no point in the race was any team realistically putting Alpecin under pressure, and when van der Poel decided to attack it was race over. So it was. In Flanders the team had Gianni Vermeersch in the head of the race and still had enough firepower to chase him down to launch an attack with their main man. History repeats itself. It's a disappointing climax for a disappointing classics season. Many didn't arrive in Roubaix due to injuries which left Alpecin in the perfect position which they seized. The Trouée d'Arenberg was exciting, the footage of the Carrefour de l'Arbre very beautiful, but racing wise... My comment is let next year be better.
The heart-melting triumph of Matthew Hayman... The much deserved triumph of Peter Sagan in 2018... The mud-filled scream-fest of 2021 where Sonny Colbrelli took a memorable win... The underdog almost wins of Nils Politt, Silvan Dillier, Florian Vermeersch... No, not every year can and will be like that, but every year it has delivered great action but that was not the case here. Strade Bianche and Tour of Flanders, the two other most spectacular races of the spring, had the same feeling. Liège-Bastogne-Liège, without a few injured riders and with Tadej Pogacar at the start, should be no different. I can already see Tadej Pogacar attack at La Redoute for a solo victory.
In their come up it is thrilling to see talents such as this race with balls and spectacular wins in the most iconic races. That has made modern cycling more exciting than what it was around a decade ago, in my fair opinion. But we're having riders so strong that, when their arch-rivals are absent, simply dominate with ease and that does not make for exciting racing, quite the opposite. There was little hope of a different outcome than what happened. Of course this is always subjective but I feel the overall feeling after today is that of disappointment, a wasted opportunity, and there should be no shame in admitting that.
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