In the 120 years since the first edition of Paris-Roubaix the only non-European rider to have won the pavé monument classic was the Australian Stuart o'Grady who triumphed in 2007. Since yesterday another kangaroo from the Orica Greenedge, Matew Hayman, Aged 38 on 18 April, in his 16th season as a professional without ever hitting a finish line except a Paris-Bourges in 2011, he surprisingly entered the roll of honor of the famous French race.
It is he who raised the classic stone of the winner of Roubaix n.114 to the sky of the Vélodrome. And he won it by burning a gigantic and moving Tom Boonem in a five-man final sprint who cradled the dream of playing poker up to the last meter. He won an authentic Carneade as happened in the past, to cite two similar examples, with a certain Dirk Demol or Frédérick Guesdon but the one that took place yesterday under a sun and a blue sky, a rare commodity in Northern France, a stone's throw from the border with Belgium, it was a vibrant and uncertain edition up to the end, exhausting as always with the stones called to make a natural selection of the competitors, dividing the platoon into many small groups.
And right from the start Boonen was among the big names the quickest to enter the right one, managing to detach, even before the forest of Arenberg, Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan, the two super favorites of the eve. Unfortunate Cancellara, who in Mons-en-Pévèle, one of the three deadliest stretches of pavé, had activated the turbo in an attempt to reconnect the leading group with Boonen, crashed without major physical consequences but in fact left the race alive. Sagan narrowly avoided him, thanks to an acrobatic bike jump, but even the world champion, without the contribution of a locomotive like Cancellara, was losing ground from the leaders.
When we were in the Carrefour de l'Arbre, the last five-star paved sector, three km which have always decided the race, Roubaix was in the hands of a quintet: with Boonen there was the Norwegian Boasson-Hagen, the Belgian Sepp Vanmarke, the British Ian Stannard and the Australian Hayman who of the five seemed there by chance, moreover running out of petrol now being the only survivor of a dozen early morning escapees. "This is another reason why Hayez was the rider that no one looked at," Boonen said at the finish, interviewed by Equipe.fr, retracing the final kilometers of Roubaix when the tussle broke out in the lead and everyone was ready to play his cards to the best of his ability .
Stannard was always strong and ready to spring. Vanmarcke, a pavé specialist, tried to give the impression that he could also succeed. Boasson-Hagen was feared to have the best sprint in the event of a sprint. But after the endless shocks caused by the stones, what mattered to him was the energy still in his legs. And Boonen, generous as ever, three kilometers from the finish, when there was only asphalt before the Velodrome, sprinted managing to make a small gap between himself and the others.
And who chased it up to reach it and even detach it? Just what you don't expect: Hayman. «When, after my attack, he overtook me – it's always Boonen who speaks after the finish – I realized for the first time that he could win too ». Boonen managed to hang up the Australian. But the other three were also back to their wheels. In the immense Roubaix Vélodrome it was a five-man sprint, thrilling and with great suspense.
Surprisingly Boasson-Hagen is the first to yield. Boonen tries on the final straight to slip between Vanmarcke and Stannard to play with Hayman who is in front of him: he overtakes the Belgian and the British by force but can't catch up on Hayman who wins by half a wheel. Third is Stannard, fourth Vanmarcke. Boasson-Hagen is fifth timed even with 3 seconds of delay. Sagan arrives 11th with a gap of more than two minutes. The world champion leaves disappointed but wants to joke about how he avoided Cancellara on the ground by tweeting: "I didnt know that I know how to fly".
Hands raised, waving to the public who give him a standing ovation, here is Fabian Cancellara, hero of many Roubaix, pedaling for the last time in the Velodrome which has seen him triumph three times. He crosses the finish line 40th more than 7 minutes behind the leaders. Many minutes also pass for Hayman before he realizes the feat he has done, a victory that is worth a career. It is clear that he is not used to triumphs. He almost apologizes for having won until he says he is desolate for having beaten Boonen by taking away his possibility of making a legendary five. But Boonen, complimenting him on the podium, reassured everyone: «I'll try again next year».
