Sunday 13 April 2014 at 20h15

The first reaction of Niki Terpstra, first Dutch winner of Paris-Roubaix after Servais Knaven in 2001, maybe best resumed the Hell of the North, version 2014. Indeed, after the queen of the classics, the rider of the Omega Pharma-QuickStep team, declared being very happy .. and very tired!

It was a fatiguing race which remained undecided until the end on the cobbles between Compiègne and the Vélodrome of Roubaix this afternoon which didn't see the big favourite Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing), but a Dutch rider win this race for the first time since 13 years!

The summary of Paris-Roubaix 2014

At 10.15AM, 199 riders started in the 112th edition of Paris-Roubaix and when they got to the km 0 in Clairoix, there were immediately several attacks but we had to wait until the 23rd kilometer to see a group of 8 break out of the peloton with 3 Belgian riders, David Boucher (FDJ.fr), Kenny Dehaes (Lotto-Belisol) and Tim de Troyer (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), two French riders of the Bretagne-Séché Environnement team, Benoît Jarrier and Clément Koretzky, and also Michael Kolar (Tinkoff-Saxo), Andreas Schillinger (Team NetApp-Endura) and John Murphy (United HealthCare Pro Cycling Team). Even though the peloton didn't seem to allow them to go off in the beginning, they finally got the approval and their gap then went up to 9'10" after 50 kilometers in the race.

Those 8 riders thus arrived together on the first of the 28 cobble stones sections of this 2014 edition of Paris-Roubaix and when they got out of it, their gap was still 8'05". This gap continued to drop slowly but progressively, but when coming closer to the Arenberg Forest, Team Sky decided to take control of the peloton and bring down the gap even more. When entering this long straight line on the cobbles, the 8 leading riders still had a 4'25" gap.

In the Arenberg Forest, after a flat tyre for Kenny Dehaes, the leading group fell apart and they ended up with 4 riders leading the race, with Schillinger, Murphy, Jarrier and De Troyer, followed a bit further by David Boucher. Boucher then lost some time due to a train passing and he never came back on the 4 leading riders. 4 riders brought back to 3 when John Murphy was no longer able to follow the tempo.

At about 65 kilometers from the finish, one of the main competitors for Fabian Cancellara, Tom Boonen (Omega-Pharma QuickStep) attacked from the peloton to go chase behind the leading trio and the Belgian rider came back on the group of 7 other chasing riders to get back on the 3 leading riders at 61 kilometers from the finish. The peloton is not far away however and in the end only Tom Boonen, Yannick Martinez (Team Europcar), Geraint Thomas (Team Sky), Damien Gaudin (AG2R La Mondiale), Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ.fr) and Bert de Backer (Team Giant-Shimano) stay in front. The two last mentioned riders don't stay in the breakaway for a long time and it thus gets reduced to 4 riders.
Thor Hushovd (BMC Racing Team) gets back on them later on, as well as Bert de Backer who comes back at the head of the race. Their gap then goes up to about 45 seconds, until Fabian Cancellara started chasing the group at 38 kilometers from the finish. Spartacus however doesn't manage to get back on the leading group, while Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and Maarten Wijnants (Belkin Pro Cycling Team) manage to join the other riders at 24 kilometers from the finish, and that's the sign for Tom Boonen to attack, without success however. Peter Sagan then goes off alone and creates a small gap while Fabian Cancellara, together with some other riders including Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin Pro Cycling Team), gets back on this small group of favourite riders.

On the cobble stones section of Camphin-en-Pévèle, which precedes the Carrefour de l'Arbre, Sep Vanmarcke starts chasing the green machine, immediately followed by Cancellara. They get back on Sagan at 15 kilometers from the finish and rapidly get company from Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) and John Degenkolb (Team Giant-Shimano), and a bit later from Niki Terpstra and Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas (Team Sky), Sebastian Langeveld (Garmin-Sharp) and Bert de Backer.

At 6 kilometers it's Niki Terpstra's turn to attack and this time it's the right one because the Dutch rider goes on alone towards the finish where he finally wins the race 20 seconds ahead of the chasing group!

Niki Terpstra's comments after the finish

After the finish, the Dutch rider answered the question how he felt simply by saying: very happy .. and very tired!

He then explained how the last kilometers of the race were for him, saying that his directeur sportif asked Terpstra and Stybar to attack at a bit over 6 kilometers from the finish and 20 seconds later he was in the lead of the race.

Concerning the race, Terpstra first answered with a smile to the question which was actually a bit stupid: what makes Paris-Roubaix special, by saying: Did you see the roads? before he explained that this race is actually a bit stupid, an old fashioned race, but that makes this race so special and that's why I love it. And concerning his race today he explained that he has always been in front and that he didn't have any mechanical problems, nor flat tyres, it was really my lucky day!

I already had several victories but people always say that it were small races, now I won the biggest classic I could win!

The classification of Paris-Roubaix 2014

Here's the top 10 of the Paris-Roubaix 2014 classification:

1/ Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - 6h09'01"
2/ John Degenkolb (Team Giant-Shimano) - +0'20"
3/ Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing)
4/ Sep Vanmarcke (Belkin Pro Cycling Team)
5/ Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)
6/ Peter Sagan (Cannondale)
7/ Geraint Thomas (Team Sky)
8/ Sebastian Langeveld (Garmin-Sharp)
9/ Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky)
10/ Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-QuickStep)

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Roubaix

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