Paris-Roubaix 2024

April 7, 2024 The 121st edition got under way with a breeze pushing the riders North bound towards Roubaix. An incredibly strong break of rouleurs got clear with 236KM to go, those riders were Per Strand Hagenes of Visma-Lease a Bike, Rasmus Tiller of Uno-X Mobility, Kasper Asgreen of Soudal Quickstep, Marco Haller of Bora-Hansgrohe, Liam Slock of Lotto-Dstny, Gleb Syritsa of Astana, and Kamil Malecki of Q36.5. Alpecin-Deceuninck did not wait long to pick up the chase. Silvan Dillier got to the front with the gap of just one minute. Lidl-Trek acknowledged the danger of the break and put Tim Declercq up to help Dillier. Dušan Rajović of Bahrain-Victorious and Dries De Bondt of Decathlon AG2R attacked the peloton to get up to the break. It took them nearly 40KM to do so and they crucially joined just 15KM before the first section of cobbles. The break hit Troisvilles with a minute and twenty five seconds ahead of the Alpecin-Deceuninck led peloton but had fifteen seconds taken off by the end of the first sector. The peloton was shredded on the 4 star sector of Quiévy by the cobbles and the heavy cross wind. Only thirty riders made it through and more were getting dropped in the wind after the segment. A longer tarmac section after Viesly à Briastre allowed riders to breath and to reform at the front. The break was caught at this point with 140.5KM remaining. The first peloton of about thirty five riders mainly stayed together through Haveluy à Wallers, two and a half minutes ahead of the second peloton. Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek led the peloton through the newly formed chicane at the entrance of Arenberg. Pedersen took the first half on the front as the group trimmed down. Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Deceuninck took up the pace on the second half and drew three other riders with him, Pedersen, his teammate Jasper Philipsen and Mick Van Dijke of Visma-Lease a Bike. A chase group of ten formed out of Arenberg and caught the front four. Stefan Küng of Groupama-FDJ and Nils Politt of UAE took advantage of a moment of calm and shot up the road with van der Poel's teammate Gianni Vermeersch marking it. A group of fifteen came back to the van der Poel group that included John Degenkolb of DSM-Firmenich, Tim Wellens of UAE and Mads Pedersen who flatted earlier with 84KM to go. Lidl-Trek were forced to do the chasing with Mathias Vacek. Vacek pulled off at 70KM and Pedersen took over, bringing the front trio back to the group, now with fewer than twenty riders. A group of ten came back on Beuvry-la-Forêt à Orchies. At 60KM to go, van der Poel attacked, Küng and Pedersen tried to get on the wheel but it was too late. The chase was unorganized and any attempt to attack was nullified by Vermeersch and Philipsen. At 50KM to go, van der Poel had a minute on the chasers. At 44KM, Pedersen did not give up and pulled out Küng, Politt, Philipsen and his teammate Laurence Pithie but had a minute and forty seconds to bring back. Pithie crashed hard on a right corner leading into a segment and Küng was dropped on Gruson, leaving just three in pursuit of van der Poel, three minutes down with 10KM to go. Van der Poel crossed the line first, smashing the record for the fastest Paris-Roubaix by a full kilometer per hour. The sprint for second was led out by Politt but Philipsen had the legs to come around for a 1-2 for Alpecin-Deceuninck Pedersen took a well earned third place.