Pauline Ferrand-Prevot became the first French winner of Paris-Roubaix Femmes, soloing to a stunning victory on her debut at the ‘Hell of the North’.
The Frenchwoman, riding for Visma-Lease a Bike, attacked with 25km to go before bridging across to Lidl-Trek’s Emma Norsgaard, dropping the Dane on the four-star Camphin-en-Pevele cobbled sector seven kilometres up the road.
The defending Olympic champion in cross-country mountain biking, Ferrand-Prevot demonstrated her prowess on the tricky cobbles as she quickly pulled out a minute’s advantage on the chasing pack, using the five-star Carrefour de l’Arbre sector to extend the gap, while teammate Marianne Vos marked every acceleration in the group behind.
She even had time to celebrate in front of a jubilant home crowd in the Roubaix velodrome, one of cycling’s most iconic finish lines, as they cheered on the first French winner of the ‘Queen of the Classics’ since Frederic Guesdon in 1997.
Victory in her first appearance at the gruelling cobbled race continued a brilliant start to the year for the veteran, who was third in the Tuscan race Strade Bianche and second in the Tour of Flanders last weekend behind world champion Lotte Kopecky. The 33-year-old only recently returned to road cycling after a long hiatus to prioritise off-road racing.
“They were riding really strong so I was confident the team could do something very good, but you still need to have some luck and to put everything together, so it was a great day for us,” the winner said.
Asked about how well her return to road racing is going, she said, “For sure, doing third in Strade Bianche and last weekend, second in Flanders, and now winning Roubaix – I didn’t expect this, to be honest! Because I felt good I said why not, I want to try. I wanted to take this race as training [for the Tour de France] so it’s not too bad, I have to say! I really enjoy my comeback on the road and I’m really happy.”
It is the biggest win of her road career since becoming world champion in 2014, and first at a Classic since Fleche-Wallonne in the same year.
EF Education-Oatly youngster Letizia Borghesi produced the surprise of the day, dropping the small group of chasers in the closing kilometres and eking out a three-second advantage across one and a half laps of the velodrome to hold off Lorena Wiebes for third place. The SD Worx-Protime rider got the better of Ferrand-Prevot’s teammate Vos in a tight sprint for the final spot on the podium.
Wiebes’ teammate and defending champion Lotte Kopecky was distanced in the latter stages of the race, rolling across the line two minutes and four seconds down having emptied the tank to help set up the team’s sprinter.
Norsgaard, who had attacked with 32km to go but fell back after she was dropped by Ferrand-Prevot, finished 14th.
