PARIS-ROUBAIX
SUNDAY 11 APRIL 250KM (MEN) | 116KM (WOMEN) | 111KM (JUNIORS) START: 8:10 (WOMEN) 10:00 (MEN) FINISH: 11:30 (WOMEN) 16:00 (MEN)
Every year Paris-roubaix organiser ASO makes a few tiny changes to the route of the race, usually in the early stages, but perhaps they shouldn’t bother. “I don’t think the small tweaks make any difference at all,” says Oliver Naesen, leader at Ag2r-citroën. “It’s the hard sectors followed by the easy roads that make the race; as long as that doesn’t change, its character remains.”
As soon as the cobbles start, in this case just outside the town of Inchy, the race begins in earnest. “The first sector often causes crashes and punctures, even though it’s a good-quality sector,” says Naesen. “Then the big ones are Haveluy, the one before the Arenberg forest; Mons-en-pévèle; Camphin-enpévèle; Carrefour de l’arbre.”
It’s the inaugural edition of the women’s race so there’s no script to follow and anything could happen, making it one of the most exciting prospects on the calendar.
Form against fate
In the men’s race there’s usually a sense of who could do what and when, based on form and the way other editions have panned out. But the current crop of newer top riders like Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel has upended that. Naesen says he’ll be watching van Aert but his tactics are more “traditional”. “He follows the rules of cycling, more or less. Mathieu can just attack at 50km to go, you never know what’s happening. He’s on such another level I think he sometimes just gets bored in the bunch,” he says, fresh from watching the Dutchman decimate the field at Strade Bianche.
Naesen, now paired with former winner Greg van Avermaet, says his team and others will seek to use a onetwo punch to dethrone the favourite. Anything can happen at Roubaix, that’s why they all keep coming back. “There’s a million ways to win this race and a bunch of non-favourites that have won it,” says Naesen.