It can only be that he alexander kristoff, the favorite of the Paris-Roubaix number 113 which is being run this Sunday. The triumph in the last Tour of Flanders, repeated in the middle of the week in the Scheldaprijs, gave the Norwegian, already an extraordinary sprinter, a new competitive dimension. Absent Tom Boonen, cobblestone record man with four victories together with Roger De Vlaeminck, still out, due to the well-known accident, Fabian Cancellara who dreamed at the beginning of the season of playing poker too, Kristoff will have to beware of the rivals he has already beaten at the Ronde di last Sunday: first of all Niki Terpstra, the Dutchman who last year arrived only in the legendary Roubaix velodrome, after having taken everyone by surprise, with the places of honor Cancellara and Degenkolb, the German of Team Shimano-Alpecin, winner of Sanremo, which with Zdenek Stybar is the most quoted after Kristoff in the bets on the eve, both given at 9 compared to the Norwegian's 5,50.
Boom, Van Avermaet, Sagan, Thomas are the other most popular names for the very classic pavé. But if Kristoff is the super favorite, this Roubaix's character is for everyone Bradley Wiggins, who has placed the very classic cobbled course at the top of his objectives, which will be his farewell race to the road before dedicating himself to the attack on the hour record. For him, Pinarello has prepared a bike with special shock absorbers that Team Sky has already tested at Fiandre. The English baronet left nothing to chance, meticulously studying the 27 paved sectors, which he has already tackled six times without too much conviction. But after last year's ninth place Wiggo put in his head and heart the idea of being able to leave the bike with a feat, win Roubaix, which would enrich not only his already rich palmarés but the legend of cycling. Never as this year has Wiggins weighed and tested the pavé, 52,7 km of uneven pebbles, divided into 27 sectors scattered over the 253.km route from Compiègne to the finish line in the Roubaix concrete velodrome, dedicated to Jean Stablinski, a times of Bobet and Anquetil.
Wiggo, much loved in England, awarded the title of baronet by the Queen, has never been so outside the homeland. But this Sunday there will be many, not just the English, to cheer for him when he takes on the fabulous Forest of Arenberg or the deadly Carrefour de l'Arbre, with Mons en Pevele, the three cobbled sectors with five-star difficulty. The very fact of having returned to the center of attention on the first sporting pages is a reward due to an athlete who was born on the track, where he has racked up victories and medals, and passed onto the road almost without attracting attention, except in competitions time trial, before exploding in the 2012 season at the age of 32 when, as if by the will of God and the Queen, he seemed predestined to win everything there was to win: Paris-Nice, Tour de Romandie, Criterium du Dauphiné, Tour de France, the first Englishman to wear the yellow jersey in Paris. And the party continued with the gold medal in the London Olympic time trial. Cycling was him. But when everyone thought he was the big favorite in the 2013 Giro d'Italia, which got off to a great start with the success in the team time trial in Ischia, the myth was shattered. It must have been the bad luck, it must have been the rain (or even the snow) that raged on the pink race, Wiggins suddenly showed a fragility understandable in a neophyte, not in a champion who had won everything the year before. When Wiggins abandoned the Giro, Nibali was already in the pink jersey with an abysmal lead over the Englishman. Virtually since then Wiggo disappeared from the billboards of major races. His team was now betting everything on Chris Froome who actually already the year before in the Tour had given the impression of having much more beer than his own captain. Team Sky had long ago decided to use Wiggins for side races such as last year's California Amgen Tour which Wiggo duly won. But by now the Giro and the Tour were closed to the Baronet who perhaps would have liked to try one last time. Now Wiggins has only Roubaix left. This is why cycling is preparing to write another chapter of its infinite history on the uneven cobblestones of the North this Sunday.
