ROUBAIX: Six months after finishing the Queen of the Classics outside the time limit, Dylan van Baarle won the Paris-Roubaix Monument on Sunday to give the Ineos Grenadiers team their most prestigious victory in a one-day race.

The 29-year-old Dutchman, who was second in the Tour of Flanders two weeks ago, went solo 19km from the finish line on a key cobbled sector to prevail at a record average speed of 45.79kph.

Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) took second place, one minute 47 seconds behind, after outsprinting Swiss Stefan Kueng (Groupama-FDJ) in the Roubaix velodrome.

Favourite Mathieu van der Poel was never really in the mix and finished a disappointing ninth, more than two minutes behind his compatriot, the first Dutch rider to win Paris-Roubaix since Niki Terpstra in 2014.

Ineos Grenadiers blew up the race with 210km to go, splitting the bunch in crosswinds and leaving the likes of Van Aert and Van der Poel chasing.

Van Baarle caught up with a leading trio of Slovenia’s Matej Mohoric, Belgians Yves Lampaert and Tom Devriendt with 25km to go.

He waited for his moment, six kilometres further down the road, to accelerate on the cobbled sector of Camphin en Pevele and only Mohoric seemed able to follow.

Yet the Bahrain Victorious rider, who had been impressive up to then, lost touch with Van Baarle, who shook his head in disbelief as he hit the wooden boards of the velodrome for the last 750 metres.

It capped a remarkable start to the season by Ineos Grenadiers, a week after Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski won the Amstel Gold Race.

The British outfit have 18 wins this year.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2022