Spartacus kept his promises. Despite a race with many changes all along the day, the Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara managed to get in front of the race at the right moment and by beating in the sprint the young Belgian rider Sep Vanmarcke he goes home with his third souvenir cobble stone!

The summary of Paris-Roubaix 2013

Despite that the sun was shining bright already at the start of the 111th edition of Paris-Roubaix, the riders only timidly came to sign in this morning.

The big favourite, Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Leopard), was the last to sign the presence sheet, in his mind already looking towardss the vélodrome in Roubaix.

After different unsuccessful attempts right from the start, Eloy Teruel (Movistar Team) is at the initiative of a 13 men strong breakaway in Noyon, at kilometer 18, with Gert Steegmans (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Bjorn Thurau (Europcar), Bob Jungels (Radioshack-Leopard), Gatis Smukulis (Katusha), Jacob Rathe (Garmin-Sharp), Jens Debusschere (Lotto-Belisol), Frederik Veuchelen (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team), Michael Morkov (Team Saxo-Tinkoff), Evaldas Siskevicius (Sojasun), Guillaume Boivin (Cannondale Pro Cycling), Clément Koretzky and Benjamin Le Montagner (Bretagne-Séché Environnement).

Their gap remains quite small however, stabilising around 35 seconds, probably due to the high speed at the start of the race. Indeed, the breakaway rode no less than 49.9 kilometers in the first hour of the race and the peloton had almost the same speed.
While crossing Saint-Quentin, there were only 25 seconds left of this gap and a bit later only 10 riders in the breakaway since Siskevicius, Teruel and Le Montagner abandoned their effort at the head of the race and the adventure also quickly ends for the other leading riders, except for Koretzky and Veuchelen who try to stay away a bit longer. At kilometer 73, before they even get on the first cobble stones section, this remaining leading duo is also taken back by the peloton.

Several new tentatives followed but the first cobble stones section is entered by a regrouped peloton in Troisvilles. On this cobble stones section it was up to Stijn Vandenbergh (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Marcel Sieberg (Lotto-Belisol) and Bert de Backer (Team Argos-Shimano) to give it a try but their attempt also failed before they got on the 3rd cobble stones section.

Just after Stuart O'Grady (Orica-GreenEDGE), Matthew Hayman (Team Sky) and again Gert Steegmans and Clément Koretzky formed a new leading group of 4, Yoann Offredo crashes in a quite spectacular way. Indeed, the rider of the FDJ team who made his comeback in the professional peloton this year is the victim of a moment where he lost attention and looked behind him while going full speed in a street separator and its traffic sign. The race thus ends their for him and he's taken to the hospital where someone took car of his chin and right elbow ...

While being controlled by the Radioshack-Leopard team, the peloton leaves a small gap to the 4 leading riders, with values going up to a maximum of around 2 minutes. At the entrance of the famous Arenberg Trench, their gap is still 1'20" when Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing Team) tears the peloton apart, while getting closer to the leading group at the same time. At about 75 kilometers from the finish, Matthew Hayman and Gert Steegmans continue as a leading duo, while the two other riders of the former leading group are joined by Michael Schär (BMC Racing Team) and the last mentioned then joins the leading duo at 58 kilometers from the finish while Damien Gaudin (Europcar) is chasing behind them. The winner of Cholet-Pays de Loire 2013 finally also joins them.

At the entrance of the cobble stones section of Mons-en-Pévèle, at 48 kilometers from the finish, this all turns out to have been useless since a small peloton gets back together at the head of the race there. In the kilometers and cobble stones sections which follow, this groups again splits up in 3 small groups with Stijn Vandenbergh, Damien Gaudin, Sep Vanmarcke (Blanco Pro Cycling Team) and Sebastian Langeveld leading, while Luca Paolini (Katusha), Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team), Juan Antonio Flecha (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team) and Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) follow them a few meters further, themselves being followed by Fabian Cancellara, Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), Bernhard Eisel (Team Sky) and Lars Boom (Blanco Pro Cycling Team).

At about thirty kilometers from the finish, the two first groups merge while Cancellara shows he really merits the nickname Spartacus when he acccellerates and tries to join the 8 leading riders. When he gets back on them, Stijn Vandenbergh and Sep Vanmarcke decide that they don't want to give in to the Swiss rider that easily and they get away at the head of the breakaway. In cobble stone section number 6 Spartacus again starts chasing, with Zdenek Stybar in his wheel and at 21 kilometers from the finish a new group of four riders is leading the race.

At the Carrefour de l'Arbre, who often has an important influence on the way the race unfolds, an unfortunate contact with a spectator who didn't pay enough attention led to a crash for Stijn Vandenbergh, who thus lost his place in the breakaway. Stybar also loses his place when he slips on a cobble stone. Only Fabian Cancellara and Sep Vanmarcke thus continue at the head of the race.

Apparently Spartacus is not sure what to think of the Belgian rider, not knowing his sprint capacities. Indeed, at 4 kilometers from the finish the Swiss rider attacks but doesn't manage to get rid of Vanmarcke. Paris-Roubaix 2013 thus ends in a sprint of two and in this game Fabian Cancellara wins it, thus taking his 3rd victory in the Hell of the North and signing his second double win Tour of Flanders / Paris-Roubaix, after 2010.

The Paris-Roubaix 2013 classification

Here's the top 10 of Paris-Roubaix 2013:

1/ Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Leopard) - 5h45'33"
2/ Sep Vanmarcke (Blanco Pro Cycling Team)
3/ Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - +0'31"
4/ Greg van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team)
5/ Damien Gaudin (Europcar)
6/ Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) - +0'39"
7/ Sebastian Langeveld (Orica-GreenEDGE)
8/ Juan Antonio Flecha ((Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team)
9/ Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) - +0'50"
10/ Sébastien Turgot (Europcar)

Photos and video images of Paris-Roubaix 2013

You can find a selection of 66 photos of Paris-Roubaix 2013 in the corresponding photo section:

>> The photos of Paris-Roubaix 2013

You'll also find a video with some images of the race on the cobbles later on!

door Thomas Vergouwen
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