Paris-Roubaix Juniors
The USA Cycling team arrived a good hour and forty-five minutes before the start of Junior Paris-Roubaix, the final and highlight race of their already successful European campaign: they were too late. The start grid was already littered with lawn chairs, watched over by team soigneurs staking out their claims, ensuring that their riders would have an early advantage in what was to be a short and violent race. The boys were somewhat astonished by the media presence, TV cameras pointed in their faces with reporters seemingly everywhere. Their first taste of The Show.
Peering over the peloton from their position at the back, the US team spotted current World Junior Road Champion, and last year’s winner, Denmark’s Albert Withsen Philipsen, resplendent in his rainbow jersey, doing bunny hops on the start line, keeping his feet clicked into the pedals so that he’d be able to explode right from the gun. The Neutral Zone was only 800-meters long, the peloton muscled through it, stopped, then restarted in a flat-out sprint: the first cobbles were only 30-k away.
The Junior edition of the famed professional classic was first organized in 2004 and won by Geraint Thomas, with Mads Pedersen and Tom Pidcock other notable winners. 17 cobblestone sectors are packed into an 111-kilometer race with the finish, just as the pros, on the famed Roubaix Velodrome. As a UCI Nations Cup event it drew a top international field; Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, The United States, Great Britain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Mexico made up the national teams, with six trade team, including the AG2R Junior squad, completing the 126-man peloton.
The American boys, just as they had done in Brittany and Limburg, rose right to the occasion, getting team leader Ashlin Barry directly to the front. With Enzo Edmonds as his pilot, they entered the first four sectors at or near the front, while behind, the chaos and crashes of Paris-Roubaix blocked up the racecourse. Edmonds crashed on Section 13, leaving Barry alone but in contention. Barry eventually cramped out of the front group to finish a fine 7th place.
Beckam Drake finished 27th, 3’24” down, while Edmonds, riding with one forearm on top of his bars as he’d damaged his wrist in the crash, finished with team captain Otis Engle, 44th and 45th respectively, @ 7’43”.
The young men had performed brilliantly over the three-weeks of their European campaign. Ashlin Barry went home with two stages, an overall stage race win, and two Youth Classification titles in his pocket. Enzo Edmonds was fourth and Ben Juracich seventh in the Youth Classification in Limburg, while both serving as motors for Barry. Multi-discipline racer Otis Engle blossomed on the road, and Noah Streif was 8th in the TT in Limburg. USA was 7th and 5th in the two stage race Team standings. They endured tough conditions; bad weather and brutal competition were the norm, yet they came through it all triumphant. A fine showing of the National Team by any measure. They – and we -should all be proud of what they accomplished.