Roubaix is the temple of the cobbles season. The Paris - Roubaix is the first monument of the 2015 season, as Milano - Sanremo and Ronde van Vlaanderen were not raced this year. The French race has a route that does not change too much from one year to the next. Its length is usually around 260 kilometers, a bit more than 50 of them in the cobbles. However, the cobbles in the Paris - Roubaix are much more demanding than the ones in Flanders. Therefore, even though some of the Flanders classics are won by sprinters it is much more difficult for them to handle Roubaix, a race much more designed for the specialists.
The first two editions of the race in Roubaix were quite crazy, which served Borut Bozic and Lieuwe Westra to add their only monuments to their record. The race two years ago was a bit more logical and Bjorn Leukemans added a Paris - Roubaix to the Liege - Bastogne - Liege that he had won the previous year. The podium two years ago was filled by Belgian riders and the local Lloyd Mondory is determined to stop that from happening again this year.
Favorites:
- Bjorn Leukemans (Lotto - Belisol): This has been a difficult season so far for Bjorn Leukemans, who has not really delivered in the cobbles so far. However, luckily for him he is almost as good in the hills as he is in the cobbles and his performance will be better all around the year. Nevertheless, the Paris - Roubaix is one of the main targets of the season for Leukemans and he is expected to at least be in the podium if not repeat his win from two years ago.
- Johan Vansummeren (Omega Pharma - Quickstep): Vansummeren is more or less in the same position as Leukemans, not having made good races in the cobbles so far. In principle Roubaix is the best cobbled race for him but he has not proven that, as the two monuments he has are two Ronde van Vlaanderen. This is surprising, considering that on paper Leukemans handles better the hills. Among the main favorites Vansummeren should also be the slowest in a final sprint, so he will need a very small group to be able to win.
- Tom Boonen (Team Sky): Tom Boonen had a clear strategy for the cobbled races until last year: stay with the front group and beat them in the sprint. However, it seems like he cannot rely on his speed anymore if Lloyd Mondory is in the group, as he bitterly realised on the Gent - Wevelgem last week. The Belgian was close to getting another win but was eventually beaten by the rising French cobbles star.
- Lloyd Mondory (Euskaltel - Euskadi): Lloyd Mondory is the only favorite that arrives in Paris with his homework done. Euskaltel is more than happy that they won a cobbled race and anything that the French achieves here will be a surplus. The only question mark on Mondory's performance is probably whether he can go the distance and end up fighting for the win in the front group as the race is much longer and tougher than the Gent - Wevelgem.
Other important riders in the Paris - Roubaix will be the usual cobblers: Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing), Alessandro Ballan (BMC Racing Team), Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto - Belisol), Gregory Rats (Orica - Greenedge), Oscar Freire (Lampre - Merida) and Nick Nuyens (Garmin - Sharp).
Two years have gone by for the riders to return to the Hell of the North. The race is close to 260 kilometers in this edition, with 60 kilometers of cobblestones in the second part of the race. Obviously, the usual key points of the race will be the 5-star sections of the Trouee d'Arenberg, Mons-en-Pevele and the Carrefour de l'Arbre. It looks like the weather is not going to be exactly nice, which should add to the already hard race.
It took a while for the break of the day to take shape as Lotto was not willing a dangerous break to go away and they put Sep Vanmarcke to work at the front for the start of the race. In the end, a group of 7 riders was allowed to go, none of them dangerous in the cobbles. The group included riders like Enrico Gasparotto (Quickstep), Alexandr Kolobnev (Tinkoff), Jos van Emden (Orica), Marco Marcato (BMC) and Sonny Colbrelli (Lampre). They reached the first section of cobbles, with 159 kilometers to go, 5' 20'' ahead of the main bunch.
A similar move to the one we witnessed in the E3 happened with 100 kilometers to go and by the time the riders made it to the Trouee d'Arenberg a group of 5 riders had joined the break, including Geraint Thomas, Luca Paolini and Greg van Avermaet. That group had 10 riders at that point as they had lost 2 members to punctures. Quickstep and Sky are helping Lotto pace the main bunch and they don't seem worried about the break so far.
The attacks from the second tier riders did not take long to start and it was Nick Nuyens who started the battle far from the finish line. The Belgian attacked with almost 70 kilometers to go and at the 60 kilometers mark he had joined forces with Luca Paolini, who had crashed out of the break, and Sonny Colbrelli. This group is 3' 40'' behind the break, where only 7 riders remain. The group of favorites is now chasing hard and only 13 riders survive the hard pace that Bjorn Leukemans set in the last cobbled section. Meanwhile, Lloyd Mondory had the bad luck to crash at the same time that Leukemans increased the pace and the French is trailing 1' 35'' behind the group of the favorites.
The race has been very demanding so far and only 9 riders hold on to the favorites group, which is being led by Jurgen Roelandts with 40 kilometers to go. The Belgian teammate of Bjorn Leukemans has closed the gap of the break to only 1' 15'' at a time when only 4 riders are in the lead: Robbie McEwen, Geraint Thomas, Greg van Avermaet and Stefan van Dijk. The bad news were for Sky, as Tom Boonen suffered a puncture and is trailing 2' 35'' behind the leaders in a group with Lloyd Mondory and Yoann Offredo. It looks like the race is going to be one of pure elimination.
Bjorn Leukemans was the last rider to relay in the group of the favorites in order to catch back Grag van Avermaet and Geraint Thomas, the last survivors of the break. However, with 20 kilometers remaining and the Carrefour de l'Arbre looming ahead of them they still have fast men in the group, like Jurgen Roelandts and Oscar Freire. Johan Vansummeren should be the rider trying to break the race. Behind the main group the chasers have scattered with Lloyd Mondory losing only 40 seconds, Tom Boonen losing 1' 05'' and Yoann Offredo 1' 15'' back. They would surely be better off collaborating.
Lotto probably had the best sprinter in the group but Bjorn Leukemans is the team leader and he decided to try to go solo towards the finish line in Roubaix. The Belgian waited to launch his final attack in Gruson and only Johan Vansummeren could follow him. With 10 kilometers to go it looks like the race is going to be a battle between the two best cobblers in the World but they cannot stop to look at each other because they have a group of 4 (Nick Nuyens, Fabian Cancellara, Gregory Rast and Alessandro Ballan) only 25 seconds behind. This attack finally left Lloyd Mondory, who had been close to bridging the gap, without options.
Bjorn Leukemans and Johan Vansummeren started playing cat and mouse too early and they got burnt as Fabian Cancellara and Alessandro Ballan managed to catch them at the entrance of the Velodrome. Gregory Rast was very close to joining them as well but the 20 seconds he is losing are too much to gain back in such a short space. Behind them the race is completely broken as Nick Nuyens is 50 seconds behind and Oscar Freire is losing 1' 15''.
The top 4 waited to start the final sprint to the last corner of the velodrome and it was Johan Vansummeren who jumped first. Alessandro Ballan was quick to react but Bjorn Leukemans di not chase them at first, maybe judging the distance. Fabian Cancellara seemed to be the one with the less energy left in the tank and looked set for the 4th place in the race.
Bjorn Leukemans wins in Roubaix! The Belgian waited a little bit to start his sprint but once he started there was no response from the rest of the riders in the group. This is the third monument in the career of Leukemans and his second straight win in Roubaix, something no one else has achieved so far in the story. He was having a poor cobbles spring but he came back strong to take the biggest of the races. The second place went to Johan Vansummeren, who will leave the cobbled season empty-handed in terms of wins. The podium was completed by Alessandro Ballan, who had his best performance in the cobbles since 2013, when he got podiums in the E3 and Wevelgem.
Fabian Cancellara was the only rider in the leading group that finished outside of the podium but he cannot be disappointed with his overall performance in Roubaix. The Swiss is slowly growing among the best cobblers. The worst luck today went to Lloyd Mondory and Tom Boonen, who both lost the train of the favorites with incidents. It is worth noting anyway that the French proved to be very strong to finish 10th after a very long chase of more than 70 kilometers.
It is good that the World Champion is such a great rider but with that kind of weather it is so difficult to see the different jerseys in the dark images.
La Fleche Wallone comes back to the calendar after a two year rest with its always iconic climb, the Mur de Huy. The route starts in Chaleroi and tackles the Mur a total of 3 times, circling around the town of Huy for the whole race. However, even though the area is plagued with hills its route is not as demanding as the ones of her two sister races in the Ardennes. The race does not even reach 200 kilometers and the total climbing is only slightly above 2.000 meters.
In terms of past winners this is the typical race in which Bjorn Leukemans reaches the podium but cannot win, and there are a few of them in the calendar. The two wins so far have gone to Janez Brajkovic and Dries Devenyns. The Slovenian has lowered his performances in the last couple of years but Devenyns could well target the double in Huy.
Favorites:
- Simon Gerrans (Trek Factory Racing): Gerrans was the king of the Ardennes last year but the Fleche Wallonne was not raced and the best that Gerrans has had in the Mur de Huy was a third place 3 years ago. It remains to be seen whether the Mur de Huy fits his abilities as well as the Cauberg did last year or if he can repeat the kind of shape that he had during this week that led him to win the Amstel Gold Race and the Liege - Bastogne - Liege.
- Simone Ponzi (Team Katusha): Ponzi is by far the most explosive of the hills riders and can even compete for mass sprints if the top sprinters are not present. However, it remains to be seen it he can deliver the same sprinting in the Mur de Huy. The Italian has already won once this season but he is not completely satisfied with the way his season has been so far. Surely a podium in the Fleche Wallonne would put him in the right path.
- David Lopez (Euskaltel - Euskadi): David Lopez is one of those strange riders that can perform both in the high mountains and in the hills of the Ardennes. However, his only good performances in classics have been the podiums in the Amstel Gold Race and the Clasica de San Sebastian. In principle, Lopez should take advantage of the peak in form that he got in the Pais Vasco to do well in Belgium.
- Jelle Vanendert (Lotto - Belisol): The Belgian rider is the less explosive of the main favorites to take the final win in the Mur de Huy and Lotto has two very good options to win the Fleche Wallonne in Bjorn Leukemans and him. It will be very interesting to see if the Belgian team can come up with some sort of tactical surprise.
Other important riders in the Fleche Wallonne will be Bjorn Leukemans (Lotto - Belisol), Rinaldo Nocentini (Team Katusha), Philippe Gilbert (Trek Factory Racing), Joaquim Rodriguez (Discovery Channel), Joost van Leijen (Vacansoleil - DMC) and Davide Rebellin (Movistar Team).
The Fleche Wallonne is traditionally an uphill finish in the Mur de Huy. If we consider that the terrain before the final climb is not hard enough to make an attack work and that the length of the route is below 200 kilometers it is difficult to think on a different outcome. This feature also means that this is the less predictable among the three races of the Ardennes, so lots of riders have an incentive to fight for the final win.
Lotto did not want to allow a big break and even though there were countless attacks in the first 30 kilometers of the race the break of the day only had three riders: Tanel Kangert (HTC), Jean-Christophe Peraud (Discovery) and Nick Nuyens (Garmin). They got to the first climb to the Mur de Huy (123 kilometers to go) with an advantage of 6 minutes over the bunch. The weather, as in the Paris - Roubaix, is horrendous again with rain and a lot of wind.
There was no action between the two first passages through the Mur but the gap to the break was decreasing steadily and was only 2' 20'' with 35 kilometers to go. However, things started to change in the second climb as several important riders were starting to appear in the front places of the bunch, including Oliver Zaugg, Dries Devenyns and Bjorn Leukemans. Nevertheless, the group is still very big which signals that the race has not been very demanding.
Alexandre Vinokourov was the only brave rider that attacked close to the top of the Mur and he managed to join the break in the Cote d'Amay. However, even though he joined forces with Nick Nuyens the pace in the main group had increased dramatically and they only enjoyed a gap of 20 seconds at the top of the hill. Cameron Meyer and Bjorn Leukemans are setting the pace in the main bunch, which suggests that Lotto is going to play Jelle Vanendert's card at the Mur.
Cadel Evans tried to attack once Alexandre Vinokourov and Nick Nuyens had been caught but he brought almost all of the favorites behind and the group did not progress. Nevertheless, the attacks continued and Xavi Tondo tried his luck in the Cote de Villers-le-Bouillet. He dragged Pieter Weening with him but Bjorn Leukemans was controlling the race at the front of the pack once again and therefore any attack would be very difficult to maintain. It seems like the outcome of the race will be decided at the Mur de Huy as it was expected since the start.
BMC took the lead of the race at the bottom of the Mur after Bjorn Leukemans and Rigoberto Uran had led through the flat for Lotto. However, the American team did not have to work for long as their own Emanuele Sella was the first man to try to attack. He did it almost from the bottom of the climb. Lots of important riders are very well positioned at the front of the pack, including Bjorn Leukemans, Rinaldo Nocentini, Hubert Dupont and Philippe Gilbert.
Emanuele Sella was swiftly joined by Hubert Dupont and Jelle Vanendert with slightly more than 1 kilometer to go. They are being followed by Cadel Evans, David Lopez and Dries Devenyns but have a bit of a gap to play with. However, the gap with the rest of the group is slightly bigger and could be a bit worrying. Simon Gerrans has been blocked against the right hand side fences and is having trouble keeping to the front of the group.
The riders are 500 meters from the finish line and the gap that the attackers had seems to be enough for them to play for the win. Only 5 riders seem within range to take the win at the top: Emanuele Sella, Hubert Dupont, Jelle Vanendert, David Lopez and Cadel Evans. It took too long to respond to this attack for the likes of Simone Ponzi and Simon Gerrans and now they are too far behind to fight for the podium.
Emanuele Sella wins in Huy! The Italian is the very surprising winner of the Fleche Wallonne after a very tight final sprint with Jelle Vanendert. Sella was probably the third option in the BMC team to go for the win but his attack could not be followed by many riders and when Dries Devenyns tried to join he did not have the legs. This is surely the best result in the career of Sella. The podium was completed by Jelle Vanendert and Hubert Dupont. The French was also a very surprising appearance in the podium.
Among the other pre-race favorites David Lopez had to settle for fourth, not being able to close the gap in the end. The result was worse for Simon Gerrans, crucially blocked when he was about to make his move and Rui Costa, who crashed midway through the race and suffered the consequences in the final climb, losing almost 2 minutes at the finish. Meanwhile, Simone Ponzi was very fast in the final meters but could only get 7th in the end.
La Doyenne closes the spring classics one more year with a new route including all the climbs that have been important in the recent years, like La Redoute, Roche-aux-Faucons, Saint Nicholas and the final climb to Ans. The route will be again around 260 kilometers and scattered with hills, especially in the second part of the race, that will bring the total climbing close to 4.000 meters for the day. That makes big groups difficult to see in the fight for the win in the hill of Ans and only 9 riders started the final climb in the front group last year.
In terms of the race record, the Belgians dominated the race until last year, when Simon Gerrans took the first foreign win in Liege. The riders with the best record are Dries Devenyns and Bjorn Leukemans, both with 1 win and another podium. The two of them are obviously among the favorites to take the win in 2015. As we said, Gerrans took the win last year after an attack in the last hill and took the win with a gap of 9 seconds over Bjorn Leukemans.
Favorites:
- Bjorn Leukemans (Lotto - Belisol): Leukemans left the leading role in the Fleche Wallonne to Jelle Vanendert but he is set to come back stronger in the Liege - Bastogne - Liege. The Belgian already knows what it is to win this monument and he was also 2nd last year. Anyway, the pressure to do well should be lower for him given that he managed to win the Paris - Roubaix and that should cover his share of monuments for the year.
- Simon Gerrans (Trek Factory Racing): Simon Gerrans is the defending champion of the Doyenne. However, he has done nothing so far this year and his performance last weekend in the Fleche Wallonne did not hint that he is in a top shape. Nevertheless, the same could be said last year and he managed to take the two Ardennes classics that were raced.
- Philippe Gilbert (Trek Factory Racing): Gerrans might have the enemy at home as Philippe Gilbert's presence among the best in the classics has become a normal thing. He has already taken a podium in the E3 Prijs this year, albeit through a break, and his relevance in team is now beyond doubts.
- Mikel Nieve (Discovery Channel): Mikel Nieve is normally more focused in the Grand Tours than the classics but whenever he prepares himself for one of the hilly classics he does a good job. His 4th places last year in the Amstel Gold Race and the Clasica de San Sebastian should be a proof that he can fight for the win in the toughest ones.
Other important riders worth following in La Doyenne are Rui Costa (Tinkoff - Saxo), Jelle Vanendert (Lotto - Belisol), Frank Schleck (Omega Pharma - Quickstep), Oliver Zaugg and Dries Devenyns (BMC Racing Team) and David Lopez (Euskaltel - Euskadi).
The uphill finish in Ans is once again the place where the Liege - Bastogne - Liege will finish, favoring the punchy riders over the quicker ones. Simon Gerrans was fastest in last year's small group but we have also seen Bjorn Leukemans take the win with a solo attack and a 49 seconds gap on Frank Schleck, who took second in 2012. The weather is again not particularly good as it has been the case in the whole spring classics season.
The break of the day was formed rather quickly today as a bigger group was allowed to break away from the bunch. It was made of 7 riders, including Geraint Thomas (HTC), Jose Serpa (Ag2r), Franco Pellizotti (Astana), Samuel Dumoulin (Belkin) and Domenico Pozzovivo (Lampre). The race was quite until Bastogne, where the break had a considerable gap of 7' 45''. Meanwhile, a few teams are sharing the burden of pacing the bunch, including Sky, Discovery Channel and Trek.
Marco Pinotti and John Degenkolb lead the bunch when the serious hills start making an appearance, like the Cote de Saint-Roch, with 139 kilometers to go. The pace is still not very hard as shown by the gap to the break that sits still at 8 minutes. However, this is the first appearance of Lotto in the front places of the pack. Among the bad news of the day are the crash of Pieter Weening, who nevertheless managed to come back to the pack and the puncture for Andrew Talansky.
The Cote were a bit isolated until the break made it to the succession of the Cotes de Wanne, Stockeau and Haute-Levee, at around 90 kilometers from the finish line. They were still all together but their gap was already steadily decreasing and in the dreadful slopes of Stockeau it had come down to 5' 15''. Quickstep and Trek are the teams making the race hard with Marco Pinotti and Michael Rogers, what is starting to cause the first casualties in the back of the pack.
Tejay van Garderen took the lead in the climb to La Redoute ahead of Michael Rogers and Simon Gerrans. The American is a luxury as a domestique for the Australian but it also shows how committed to the performance of the team as a whole they are in Trek. The only one that is not still appearing at the front for the team is Philippe Gilbert. Matthias Frank and Bauke Mollema were well positioned in the group but the first important attack was by Davide Rebellin in the flat section at the top of La Redoute, a place where an attack normally hurts.
Davide Rebellin still held a small gap of 20 seconds over the group of the favorites at the Cote de Forges (32 kilometers to go). Katusha has taken over Trek at the front of the group and it is Rinaldo Nocentini chasing the Italian. The early break is about to get caught in one of the last hills of the route, although they still have three more places to attack before the finish line. The race is now completely broken into pieces and the group of the favorites is steadily losing riders.
Davide Rebellin could not make it to the Roche-aux-Faucons but other soon took over the attacking. Chris Froome was the first to attack in the increasingly famous climb and he dragged Philippe Gilbert with him. However, it would be Bjorn Leukemans who topped the climb first after catching them in the second part of the climb. The three of them have a bit of a gap over a group of only 25 riders where the most important riders missing are both from Quickstep: Janez Brajkovic and Andy Schleck.
The attempt was also unsuccessful but Chris Froome tried another attack in the Cote de Saint-Nicholas. However, the British did not have the legs anymore. However, the one that did was Philippe Gilbert. The Belgian is the second card for Trek and is pushing to try to wear the rest of the teams. He had a good gap of 10 seconds at the top of the climb, with only 6 kilometers to go. The group of the favorites is now tiny and good riders like Rui Costa, Bauke Mollema and Oliver Zaugg have not made it to the last cut. Jelle Vanendert is trying to close the gap to Gilbert.
Philippe Gilbert reached the bottom of the climb to Ans with a gap of 18 seconds over the group of the favorites. It is probably not enough to make it comfortably to the finish line but is a gap big enough to make some of the favorites nervous. The group of chasers is quite big this year as 16 riders are being led by Frank Schleck with Bjorn Leukemans and Chris Froome on his tail. Simone Ponzi has managed to stay with the best and will be one of the most dangerous riders in the final sprint if he has been able to save some energies for the final punch.
Philippe Gilbert has managed to hold on to the lead already inside the last kilometer of the race but he is being caught by the rest of the favorites. Bjorn Leukemans is leading the final rush ahead of Chris Froome and David Lopez. Jelle Vanendert is in the fifth place but will probably not attack Leukemans and stay behind to stop other attacks.
Bjorn Leukemans wins in Ans! This is a major achievement by the Belgian, as he has won the Paris - Roubaix and the Liege - Bastogne - Liege in the same year. He easily coasted past Philippe Gilbert and really had no rival in the final meters. Leukemans now accumulates 4 monuments in his career, more than any other rider. The party for Lotto did not end here as Jelle Vanendert escorted Leukemans in the second place, while the third spot in the podium will be for Philippe Gilbert.
The fourth place was for David Lopez, while last year's winner, Simon Gerrans, was fifth. The Australian clearly was not the same rider he was last year in the Ardennes and never threatened for the win. The fact that Trek sent Gilbert on the attack probably had more to do with the lack of legs by Gerrans than as a strategic choice. The sprint classics are now over and, even though they did not start well for him, Bjorn Leukemans is the clear winner of the year. Lotto has to be very satisfied with two second places by Jelle Vanendert in the Ardennes as well, while Gilbert had podiums in the E3 and the Liege.
