Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) crushed the competition in Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix winning by three minutes over his nearest rivals. Teammate Jasper Philipsen took second place from a group of three that included Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), who rounded out the podium in third.
Van der Poel’s super-human performance equally impressed fans and rivals. At the line, Mads Pedersen was gracious about Van der Poel’s win. “Mathieu’s was in a different league today. I have zero excuses. I was beaten by better boys.”
Van der Poel himself gave much credit to his team afterwards. “We were perhaps even stronger as a team than last year. “I’m super proud of the boys and very happy to finish it off.”
The action started early and the 259.7km race eneded up being the fastest ever edition of Paris-Roubaix. A wind from the south resulted in the first hour of racing being completed at a pace of 54 kmh.The 29 sectors of cobbles were relatively dry, but in certain sectors recent rain kept the the edges wet and muddy.
Alpecin-Deceuninck helped split up the peloton over the cobbled sectors and after 150km the majority of the peloton was out of contention. With each passing cobbled sector, the lead peloton was reduced until only about 25-30 riders were left with 80km to go. Over the next twenty kilometers riders attacked, but no one was able to stay away. With 59km remaining Van der Poel made his move on sector 13, the Orchies cobbles, and accelerated away. Mads Pedersen led the chase from behind, but it was a futile attempt to catch Van der Poel, who gained more and more time with each passing kilometer.
Van der Poel built a lead that eventually reached three minutes by the time he reached Roubaix velodrome and celebrated his second victory at Paris-Roubaix. Teammate Jasper Philipsen easily won the sprint for second with Pedersen in third.
Results
- Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) 5:25.58
- Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +3:00
- Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) “
- Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates) “
- Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ) +3:15
- Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +3:47
- Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ) +3:48
- Tim Van Dijke (Visma-Lease a Bike) +4:45
- Jordi Meeus (Bora-H=hansgrohe) +4:47
- Soren Waersenskjold (Uno X-Mobility) “
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/paris-roubaix/2024/result
