What I’ll be Looking for on Sunday
Paris-Roubaix is quite possibly the craziest sporting event on earth. The length, the 19th century cobblestones, the wind, weather, and the wild crowds all combine to create a day like no other. Here below are some of the themes I’ll be following.
The race will ultimately revolve around the fight between the two main protagonists, Wout Van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. VdP is very, very strong right now. He was imperial at Milano-Sanremo, rode the front like a bulldozer at GP E3, and was the strongest apart from Pogačar at the Tour of Flanders where, after the Slovenian’s final, race-winning hill surge, VdP was able to hold him at 15” all the way to the finish.
Van Aert has been slightly off the mark this Spring. He struggled on the Poggio, couldn’t follow the surges of Pogačar and VdP on the cobbled climbs and is still in recovery mode from his crash last Sunday. Is the Jumbo-Visma team completely dedicated to his cause? Or, as he intimated in the press, are they going to play the full team game giving 2022 Paris-Roubaix winner Dylan van Baarle, for example, his own chances to win. What’s more, he must win (a brutal level of media and fan pressure is on Van Aert to finally win a cobblestoned Monument) whereas vdP really wants to win. That’s a big mental difference between the two that will play out in subtle ways during the race. Which one might risk losing the race in certain tactical situations? And if the two of them find themselves mano-mano at the front of the race, will Van Aert be able to follow van der Poel’s massively powerful surges? Because if Mathieu opens a gap, there’s just about no one able to close it.
The Danish duo of 2019 World Champion Mads Pedersen and Kasper Agreen will make the racing interesting. Look for a long-range attack by Asgreen, on the comeback trail after eight-months of inactivity and still a bit diesel-like, while Pedersen must be making everyone nervous. He was very powerful at Flanders -where he won the sprint for third - thus clearly on the best form in years. The Dane can ride close to the same levels as Van Aert and VdP minus the pressures and with a keen eye to profit from their intense rivalry.
The Filippo Ganna experiment continues chez Ineos, the team working to turn him into a Classics king. Milano-Sanremo worked out of course (2nd) but, with his crash at Gent-Wevelgem, the Italian’s bike handling issues come back into question. At Sanremo the team hand delivered him to the base of the Poggio, but on Sunday’s cobblestones he’ll have to be able to maneuver on his own. A winner of the 2016 U-23 edition of P-R, the powerful Italian, should he find himself in front and contention, will be able to lay down massive wattage, so much so that he could find himself a winner.
Outsiders include Alexander Kristoff who is the type of rider to win something big, go quiet for a couple of years then emerge for another triumph; Arnaud De Lie – the new Belgian hope – who has been building up to this race as a confirmation of his status; Stefan Küng, the big Swiss always knocking on the door; Matteo Trentin whose brilliant tactical sense has made him the Kingmaker for his UAE squad; and Slovenian Matej Mohorič, always a dangerman.
It's most enjoyable to follow the progress of the only American in the race, Magnus Sheffield. He’ll be on Ganna duty but has strength in reserve and who knows what surprises the former Hot Tubes junior will bring us.
Guilluame Van Keirsbulk, riding for the small Bingoal WB team, has been the early breakaway specialist this cobbled Classics season so far, let’s see if he can force himself into the early move yet again. Another team, the new Q36.5 team from Switzerland, has had riders in the early breaks at Milano-Sanremo and Tour of Flanders so will be flat out to make that same move in their third Monument in a row. Keep an eye on them, Q36.5 will develop into a very good team.