John Degenkolb, winner of Paris-Roubaix in 2015 and whose career was almost ended when he was hit by a driver while training for the following season, was back to his best over the cobbles today as he won Stage 9 of the Tour de France in Roubaix.
The Trek Segafredo rider beat overall leader Greg Van Avermaet of BMC Racing in a three-man sprint, with Belgian champion Yves Lampaert of Quick Step Floors taking third place on a stage that took in 15 cobbled sectors totalling 22 kilometres over the
Van Avermaet stretches his lead over Team Sky's Geraint Thomas to 43 seconds, but that will be of little comfort to BMC Racing, as their main overall hope Richie Porte crashed and abandoned just 7 kilometres into the 156.5-kilometre stage from Arras and Tejay Van Garderen also lost time.
The decisive move eventually came 15 kilometres out as the trio who would dispute the stage win got away from the front group, just after the final survivors of the day’s 10-man break had been swept up ahead of the penultimate section of pave.
Besides Porte, it might be easier to list the riders who didn’t crash rather than those who did, with sharp corners coming out of cobbled sections causing a succession of chutes.
Among the big names to hit the deck were defending champion Chris Froome, who came home in the first chase group, together with Thomas, as well as last year’s runner-up, Rigoberto Uran of EF Education First-Drapac, who lost more than a minute on his rivals.
The man who completed the podium last year, AG2R La-Mondiale’s Romain Bardet, experienced a day in which a succession of mechanical problems – beginning on the very first section of cobbles – left him having to constantly battle back to rejoin the group.
The Frenchman put in one the performances of the day, but with around 6 kilometres remaining his luck finally seemed to run out as he punctured yet again.
This time, isolated from his team mates, it appeared impossible for him to get back to the group containing Froome – although as it turned out, he managed to limit his losses to a handful of seconds.
Another strong performance came from UAE Team Emirates rider Dan Martin, battered from his crash yesterday, but who even managed to pick up a late bonus second today.
After tomorrow's rest day, racing resumes in the Alps on Tuesday with Stage 10 from Annecy to Le Grand Bornand.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.