Unleashing the Underdogs at Paris-Roubaix: Can Van der Poel and Kopecky be Dethroned This Weekend?

Can the cobbles reserved for the winners of Paris-Roubaix escape this weekend from the rainbow favorites, Lotte Kopecky and especially Mathieu van der Poel? The opposition, smashed by the gadins, have learned their lesson on the Flandrian mountains and the flying Dutchman single-handedly dominates the predictions as outrageously as Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara in their heyday.

Between 2005 and 2013, the Belgian and Swiss giants lifted seven of the nine cobblestones distributed to the winner in the André-Pétrieux velodrome. Their two heartthrobs? Long-range attackers, who had anticipated the offensives of the two classic super-stars, to better subdue them in the final. What will inspire the daring in 2024?

When I signed my contract with Garmin, I told Vaughters: ‘I know I can’t win many races… But Roubaix, I can do it!’”, rewinds Belgian giant Johan Vansummeren. In fact, his track record only includes the Tour of Poland and Paris-Roubaix, in 2011, at the heart of the Boonen-Cancellara shared reign. Four years earlier, Stuart O’Grady had already done it. “I was plan B that day,” smiles the man who, on the eve of becoming the first Australian winner of the Hell of the North, shared the room with… Fabian Cancellara, his leader.

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When they accelerated, Tom and Fabian were impossible to follow,” adds Mathew Hayman, expert on Paris-Roubaix (17 participations, a record) and its big offensives (he was part of the Vansummeren group in 2011), winner in 2016 ahead of Boonen after having escaped before even the first cobblestones.

The breakaway has often had success in this race, we can even go back to Dirk Demol in 1988,” specifies the Australian. “We had a 222 kilometer breakaway!”, remembers the man who had frustrated Laurent Fignon at the time. Just last year, Alison Jackson took on Lotte Kopecky and the big favorites at the end of a thriller that began before the first cobbles.

Call to adventurers

In the Hell of the North, chaos lurks at every cobbled turn to crush the giants and favor the bold. It remains to find the candidates and the keys to the race to overthrow Van der Poel and Kopecky – who tend to consider that the offensive is often the best defense – and their impressive collectives – especially Alpecin-Deceuninck, imperial in the time to filter the breakaway last week on the Tour of Flanders.

I always emphasize the importance of the first offensives,” explains Hayman, now sports director at Jayco-AlUla, while Demol gives his advice to the Lotto-Dstny riders. In the ranks of the Australian team, a rider like Max Walscheid took 8th place last year after a wild race – “we had joined Van der Poel and Van Aert with Pedersen and Ganna in Arenberg” – and 12th in 2021 by taking the morning breakaway to anticipate the wet cobblestones.

Taking the Roubaix breakaway is one of the hardest things,” observes O’Grady. “Everyone goes all out, you have to know how to use your experience to feel the right move and make the effort when the road starts to undulate with very small climbs which can serve as a springboard,” adds the one who had battled a forty kilometers before leaving. “It’s a full-on fight and it comes out at a difficult moment, we won’t let you go,” says Hayman, whose breakaway was gone after two hours.

And we must add a part of success and flair. “We had three other riders designated for the morning breakaway but I saw a big group leaving and I said to myself that we had to be there,” describes Hayman. “I didn’t see that Magnus Cort was in front.” Alison Jackson also thought about letting her partners cover the first offensives. “When it started to go, I reacted on instinct,” smiles the experienced Canadian. “Come on, here’s the escape!”

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Making the escape (sur)vive

For Jackson, “the breakaway is a gamble: you take the risk of trying too hard, but you give yourself a chance to be in the final part of the race.” As long as you get along well in front. “Every detail counted,” explains the woman who saw the favorites fail at 12 seconds. “I wanted to set an example by taking over, by showing that I believed in the breakaway, which allowed the other riders to get involved.”

They rolled, rolled, rolled! And I was whistling in the wheels…

Vansummeren’s happiness came from the presence of three Lotto in his group (Greipel, Roelandts and Boucher…). “They rolled, rolled, rolled! And I was whistling in the wheels…” Behind, Boonen found himself stopped in the Arenberg gap, Sylvain Chavanel fell and Cancellara was unable to extricate himself from Thor Hushovd, Vansummeren’s teammate.

As for Dirk Demol, he was “lucky enough to be with Thomas Wegmuller. They called him Thomas Turbo, or Terminator, because he always went hard. I was on reserve, to keep energy to help my leader Eddy Planckaert [vainqueur du Tour des Flandres une semaine plus tôt]. And then, 45 kilometers from the finish, a press car passed with Roger De Vlaeminck, Mr. Paris-Roubaix, who said to me: ‘You’re going to go to the end!’ From then on, I gave it my all.”

Four years later, Wegmuller accompanied Jacky Durand in his victorious breakaway in the 1992 Tour of Flanders. Can we still find such good breakaway companions in 2024? “I tried too hard in 2021,” observes Walscheid. “It is better to save yourself by saying that, the way Roubaix has evolved, the favorites start the race from a long way away and will inevitably come back. The idea is to arrive in the finale without having had to make any more effort than them.” Or even a little less…

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Difficult to organize a coherent pursuit

Up front, the Roubais escapees benefit from unique advantages. “It’s less dangerous,” describes Hayman. “You choose your line, you can ride on the top of the pavement to limit the risk of punctures, there are fewer falls… I remember that at the end of my career, I really wanted to take the breakaway so as not to end up Arenberg with the peloton even though it was wet.” After the efforts at the start of the race, the runners at the front can also better manage their efforts on this unique terrain (more than 50km of cobblestones known for their roughness).

Behind, “the peloton sprints for each sector”, recalls Hayman. “And then the pace drops. It is difficult to organize a coherent pursuit. In a normal race, you put your team in front and things work out. On the cobblestones, there is too much going on. So sometimes leaders have to do the selection to try to get collaboration. There are a lot more variables to take into account for the peloton.”

At one point, Kopecky attacked but she left her SD Worx teammates behind and she couldn’t continue alone,” recalls Jackson. And what would have become of her escape without the fall which took away the entire group of favorites (with the exception of Romy Kasper) in the Pont-Thibaut sector in Ennevelin?

The victorious escapees from the Hell of the North were able to invent a unique scenario, impossible to reproduce, which frightens the peloton as much as it inspires the daring. “This year, I think there will only be three breakaways and I will hardly be part of them,” predicts Jackson. Both Kopecky and Van der Poel would sign with both hands.

Relive Monumental Cobbles, the documentary on the cobble madness of Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders, by subscribing to Eurosport:

Monumental Cobbles: welcome to cobble hell

2024-04-06 20:00:00
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