This time, after missing the Sanremo and the Ronde, Peter Sagan has not betrayed the predictions who wanted him to be the super favorite of this Paris-Roubaix and he did it his way, triumphing with an attack when there were still about fifty kilometers to go to the finish. An action that almost seemed like a tactical folly immediately after mending up Greg Van Avermaet. The world champion thus made the void, quickly reaching the squad of fugitives which also included the Swiss Stefan Dillier, the only one to resist the action of the world champion.
Also with the help of his unexpected companion in the adventure, Sagan entered the terrible and bumpy Carrefour de l'Arbre, often the decisive stretch of the French classic-monument, with almost a minute and a half ahead of the first group of pursuers dragged by Niki Terpstra and Van Avermaet. But by now the tandem of the two leaders, the champion and the outsider, was now spinning towards the Velodrome to compete for Roubaix. And in one of the legendary temples of cycling Dillier did not repeat the fable of David against Goliath achieved two years ago by the Australian Mathew Hayman who surprisingly slipped the idol of the house, the great Tom Boonen. With a not even complicated sprint, Sagan was finally able to lift the porphyry stone, in the shape of a cube, which rewards the Roubaix winner.
Third less than a minute Terpstra. The Slovakian in the rainbow jersey had written another page of great cycling, winning his second classic-monument of his career after the 2016 Ronde, at the end of an exciting and tragic Roubaix, marked at km 109 by the drama of the Belgian Michael Golaerts , who fell lifeless on the side of the road while facing the second sector of cobbles. Rescued, the diagnosis was immediately terrible: cardiac arrest. Hospitalized in Lille, his conditions immediately appeared very serious. He never regained consciousness despite CPR and the immediate use of the defibrillator. The unfortunate 23-year-old Flemish athlete from Veranda Willems-Crelan passed away at 21.40 last night.
