The show started when on arrival they are missing still 100km. Even before the forest of Arenberg. A Paris-Roubaix open-faced pedaling, a face-to-face between the strongest without tactics and frills, with only the cobblestone to act as a watershed between the victor and the vanquished: in the end, a ruler entered the Velodrome with his arms raised Mathieu Van der Poelwhich 17 km from the finish on the Crossroads of the Tree, one of the most complicated sectors of the mythical classic, said goodbye to the company of excellent rivals and flew off towards the finish line. Bad lucky Wout Van Aertthe only one to keep up with the Dutchman on the cobblestones, but forced to stop for one puncture which prevented him from winning. Excellent Filippo Summerable to remain until the end in the highly selected elite group which monopolized the last 100 km. He finished sixth at the finish, behind a Mads Pedersen e Stefan IfWhile Jasper Philipsen he finished second by regulating Van Aert in the sprint and thus completing a historic one-two for the team Alpecin-Deceuninck.
“It’s been a crazy ride the way we’ve gone from the start,” said Van der Poel after the finish. He’s right: out of 256.6 km, the first 50 were probably boring. The classic initial escape, then a group of counter-attackers, finally the action of the Jumbo Visma even before Arenberg, the hardest and most famous stretch of the Roubaix which, however, reached about 95 km from the finish. Exit the forest hellishin front they were already left only the best. A natural selection that made the race a challenge among the favourites, the ones everyone hopes to see on the eve. Van der Poel, the only one in numerical superiority thanks to the presence of Philipsen and another teammate, he tried to attack in two occasionsreducing the group to just seven units. Among them also Ganna, who has shown that he knows how to stand shoulder to shoulder with i best even on cobbles.
Van der Poel, already winner this year at Milan-San Remo, was able to finally say goodbye to the company on the Carrefour de l’Arbre, also thanks to a puncture that knocked out Van Aert, the only one who seemed able to keep up with him. For the Dutchman it is the first success in the race on stones. “I’m not never felt so strong like today. In some cases you need good legs and a lot of luck, I had both today ”, she said after the finish line. “It was one of better days of my cycling career. At the Carrefour de l’Arbre there was the fall of Degenkolb, then I had to close the gap with Van Aert, in the end I found myself alone up front. It’s really something incredible, it’s my best season in the classics”, exulted Van Der Poel.
A little disappointed Philip Ganna to the microphones Rai Sports after the sixth place, despite a capital test: “The last kilometres they never went byfrom the Carrefour de l’Arbre onwards it has been suffering“. “The team did a great job, I just have to say thank you, the guys have all moved Very good and they took me up to the Arenberg Forest in excellent condition – added the Ineos Grenadiers rider analyzing the race – Then in the last kilometers my legs failed a bit”. Ganna felt he could aim for the podium, as evidenced by his controversial comment on some of the remarks: “There is a bit of regreteven just for the podium, when you find colleagues who they don’t cooperate because they say they have i cramps and then they do the sprint it’s not so nice…”. The reference is probably to Pedersen e Ifremained in the company of the Piedmontese in the last km.