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Mathieu van der Poel broke his personal document time to defend the Paris-Roubaix title after a surprising solo assault.
The Dutch world champion, 29, pounced 60km from the end and went on to beat the mark he set final yr by virtually three minutes.
It was his sixth win in a Monument – the identify given to street biking’s 5 most prestigious one-day races.
“I never could have dreamed of this as a child,” he mentioned, after including to final weekend’s Tour of Flanders victory.
“I was super motivated this year, I wanted to show off the [rainbow] jersey [as world champion] in a nice way. It goes beyond expectations. I am lost for words to be honest with you, but I am really enjoying this moment.”
Paris-Roubaix is the third Monument of the season, after Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, with Liege-Bastogne-Liege (21 April) and the Giro di Lombardia (12 October) to return.
Organisers had made tweaks to the notoriously tough course in a bid to guard riders following quite a few current high-profile crashes.
Belgian rider Wout van Aert, who would have been one among Van der Poel’s essential rivals, suffered a damaged collarbone and a number of other damaged ribs in a heavy crash on the Dwars door Vlaanderen one-day race in March.
However whereas the race, which incorporates 57km of perilous cobblestones, was punctuated by a sequence of bumps and falls, Van Der Poel’s Alpecin-Deceuninck workforce helped maintain him out of hazard earlier than offering the platform to launch his assault.
The Dutch rider shortly opened a big lead because the chasing pack began to battle amongst themselves for the minor locations.
He rode alone into the well-known Roubaix velodrome, the place the race historically finishes, and crossed the end line in 5 hours 25 minutes 58 seconds – finishing the route on the quickest common velocity within the historical past of the occasion, which was first held in 1896.
Van der Poel’s Belgian team-mate Jasper Philipsen completed in second place, three minutes behind, pipping Denmark’s Mads Pedersen in a dash end.
Fred Wright was the primary British rider dwelling, in thirteenth place in a gaggle 4 minutes 47 seconds again, whereas former junior and under-23s winner Tom Pidcock was seventeenth on his senior debut.
In the meantime, Britain’s Josh Tarling was disqualified early within the race after being judged to have gained an unlawful tow from his Ineos Grenadiers workforce automobile as he tried to rejoin the peloton following a puncture.
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