One of the oldest and most well-known Pro-Tour races traditionally ridden by all the world’s best riders, the ending to this year’s Paris-Roubaix was a little less expected. This year the three favourites for the title were two-time previous winner and world time-trial champion Fabian Cancellara, world road race champion Thor Hushovd, and multiple Paris-Roubaix top-ten finisher Juan Antonio Flecha. And predictably enough, when three riders split from the peloton to form a chase group (the poursuivants) behind the breakaway group one minute ahead, they were Cancellara, Hushovd and Flecha, along with BMC’s Alessandro Ballan. When Cancellara made his first attack, Flecha dropped back, and Ballan was forced to chase Cancellara and Hushovd to keep up. The three closed the gap on the leading group of around 17 riders to 20 seconds, but this soon ballooned out to 40 seconds when Cancellara stopped leading. Both Hushovd and Ballan had riders from their teams in the lead group, and with both riders sitting on his back wheel and refusing to do a share of the work, Cancellara chose to simply stop chasing rather than help his rivals to an easy victory.
It was at 14 kilometres to go that Cancellara chose to make his move. A group of four riders had gone off the front of the leading group, and Cancellara couldn’t wait any longer if he wanted to have a chance. Hushovd gave chase, and Ballan and Flecha followed them down the road, blowing past the scattered remnants of the leading group. Soon it was just Cancellara and friends chasing three riders out front, who were in turn chasing down Johan van Summeren, the fourth leading rider who had made a break of his own. That was when Cancellara went for it again, and this time Hushovd couldn’t follow. Cancellara caught the three riders ahead with only one kilometre to go, but even Johan van Summeren’s flat tyre at the five-k mark didn’t slow him down enough for Cancellara to catch him before he entered the Velodrome at Roubaix and secured first place.
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