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John Degenkolb wins Paris-Roubaix after Bradley Wiggins threat fades John Degenkolb wins Paris-Roubaix after Bradley Wiggins threat fades
(about 1 hour later)
John Degenkolb won the Paris-Roubaix classic on Sunday, sprinting to victory in the Roubaix vélodrome after Bradley Wiggins’s challenge faded. Sir Bradley Wiggins drew the curtain on his career with Team Sky with an 18th place in Paris-Roubaix that was neither dream nor disaster. The 2012 Tour de France winner could hold his head high after being one of a select group who fought out the final kilometres. The German John Degenkolb played a tactical blinder to win his second Classic in a few weeks from six riders, 31 seconds ahead of the main pack, including Wiggins and his team-mate Luke Rowe, who finished off the front of the chasers in eighth.
The 253km ride across the cobbles and dusty roads of northern France ended with Degenkolb of the Giant Alpecin team crossing the line ahead of the Czech rider Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-Quick Step) and Belgium’s Greg van Avermaet (BMC). “I’ve just kissed [the Team Sky chief] Dave Brailsford on the forehead and told him we’ve gone through a lot together,” Wiggins said. “He’s known me since I was an 18-year-old streak of piss and now I’m a 35-year-old streak of piss. I was pleased with the race. I wanted a clean run; I didn’t have one puncture or crash. I had the legs to win but everyone in that group did. It could have been any one of us.”
“[This is] the race I’ve always dreamed of to win,” Degenkolb said at the finish, after becoming the first German to win the so-called “Hell of the North” since 1896. “This is unbelievable. I can’t get it right now. My team was there all day to hold the situation under control until I could start. I was not afraid to fail and that was the key.” If there was one regret for Sky, it was not Wiggins’ 18th place. This is so unpredictable a Classic that victory for him here was a long shot, if a valiant one at that. What the British team could have done without was the misfortunes of Geraint Thomas, their stand-out performer this spring, who had two punctures early on, regaining the peloton on both occasions only for a brutal crash to end his race just after the toughest cobbled section, the Arenberg Forest with 93.5km left.
A nine-man breakaway built an eight-minute advantage and the brutal race quickly started to takes its toll. Stijn Devolder, who had an outside chance of victory, crashed out in one of the first cobbled sectors and he was taken to hospital with face and leg wounds, according to his Trek Factory team. Thomas was squeezed up against the kerb on a right-hand bend, and fell heavily, chasing vainly before calling it a day. That in turn left Sky short of bodies in the finale. On the other hand, the prospect of Rowe – who is just 25 – teaming up with his fellow Welshman Thomas and the ever-present Ian Stannard is one to relish for next year.
Several riders squeezed around the barriers at a level crossing with about 85km left a few seconds before a speeding train passed through – a move that normally triggers a disqualification. This was a slightly muted edition of the Hell of the North, with no dominant rider or team able to stamp their authority on the 253km. A strong tailwind made for an epic fast event run off at over 43kph average – not far from record speed – but made it hard to create attacking opportunities.
The race commissaires slowed the pack down to allow those trapped behind to rejoin the front. As a result, it was not until after the final tough section of cobbles at Carrefour de l’Arbre on the final run-in that the decisive move formed, with Degenkolb putting in a solo chase to join three leaders in the final 10km.
Shortly afterwards Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas, one of the pre-race favourites, crashed after hitting a curb having already punctured twice on a bad day for the rider who did not make it back to the main pack. That little group, with Degenkolb and the Belgians Greg Van Avermaet and Yves Lampaert, swelled to seven by the final laps of the historic velodrome, with Degenkolb timing his sprint to perfection. In doing so, he added this Classic to his victory in Milan-San Remo in late March, and became the first German win here since Josef Fischer won the opening edition in 1896.
Wiggins, making his last appearance on the road for Team Sky, briefly threatened in the closing stages but once Degenkolb entered the vélodrome there was only going to be one winner. The most dramatic moment – and the one which will be debated in years to come – came shortly after Arenberg with 91km remaining, when a level crossing gate dropped as the peloton came through. At least 25 riders squeezed round the barriers before a gendarme managed to stop the rest in the nick of time as a high-speed train bore down on them, and the front part of the peloton was slowed to wait for those who had been held up. Going through level crossings is – given the dangers – against the rules, but the organisers confirmed later no action would be taken.
Degenkolb becomes only the third man to win the Paris-Roubaix and Milan-San Remo in the same season. Wiggins had ridden cautiously through the cobbled sectors as the peloton repeatedly split and reformed but he came to the front in time to go on the attack as the race approached the final 30km. He quickly linked up with the Belgians Stijn Vandenbergh and Jens Debusschere, with the strong Czech Zdenek Stybar making a promising quartet, but the move gained 15 seconds before fizzling out as the others soft-pedalled. It could have been the prelude to a dream finale, but instead it was what the French call un baroud d’honneur, the final flourish from a duelling swordsman who knows the end is imminent.
“It was nice to be able to attack,” Wiggins said. “I had a go where I said I would. I was in a pretty good position, no one really expected it there [but] I was lumbered with a couple of guys who didn’t want to work. When I attacked I was right up the motorbikes, it was like being 16 again, training on the mews next to my house in London. That’s something to tell the kids: your dad was shit at Paris-Roubaix but he was leading the main group at one stage.”
As Degenkolb and Stybar guided the seven leaders into the finish, Wiggins attacked out of the main group at 5km to go in an attempt to salvage something with the Belgian Classics specialist Sep Vanmarcke, but again it was to no avail.
“By then it’s like the Titanic when it’s going down in the film and they are all hanging on for grim death, people falling, everyone trying to squeeze something out. It looked like no one had anything left, normally with this wind it would split in pieces.”
Wiggins leaves top-level road racing for the newly formed Team Wiggo and his build-up to the World hour record and the 2016 Olympics in Rio with no regrets, he insists, although it can only be conjectured what he might have managed in this race if he had taken it seriously at the start of his career rather than the end.
“I had opportunities before, I rode this 13 years ago and had my chance. This was like a new job in the last two years, a bit of passion.”
The day had begun and ended in front of banners brandished by the British fans who have flocked to watch Wiggins and company in the last few years, but the 2012 Tour winner noted his peers too had said their farewells during the day.
“It was nice, guys you’ve been banging heads with for years and never spoken to, coming up in the race and congratulating you on your career. It’s hard not to get emotional. I’m pretty happy.”