Mathew Hayman stunned the favorites to become only the second Australian winner of Paris-Roubaix on Sunday.
The 37-year-old said he had not even dared to dream about winning the “Hell of the North” this year having broken his arm just five weeks ago during a race in Belgium, but the Orica-GreenEdge rider edged out Belgian legend and four-time winner Tom Boonen in a sprint finish at the famous outdoor velodrome in Roubaix following a grueling 257.5km ride from Compiegne, near Paris.
“Just pure disbelief, I can’t believe it,” said a stunned Hayman, the second Australian to win the Queen of the Classics after Stuart O’Grady in 2007. “I broke my arm five weeks ago and missed all the racing. I raced a race in Spain last week. This is my favorite race, it’s a race I dream of every year. This year I didn’t even dare to dream.”
Photo: EPA
Hayman was part of a 12-man breakaway that got clear 75km into the race, but when a group of chasing favorites caught them about 65km from the end his chances seemed over.
However, Hayman hung in there as the new lead group was whittled down bit by bit over each of the 27 cobbled sectors totaling 52.8km.
Five riders reached the velodrome together in with a chance of winning the prestigious Monument race, but although Norway’s Edvald Boasson Hagen of Team Dimension Data was the best sprinter on paper, he ran out of steam and finished fifth.
Britain’s Ian Stannard of Team Sky took third with Belgium’s Sep Vanmarcke of LottoNL-Jumbo fourth.
For Etixx-QuickStep’s Boonen, 35, it was one of his last chance to win a fifth Paris-Roubaix and move clear of the record four wins he shares with compatriot Roger de Vlaeminck.
“I’m very happy with the team today and Tony Martin worked really hard,” Boonen said. “I rode to win so I wanted to stay in the front group. I tried to attack, but Hayman made a really strong counterattack. I wanted to take the final bend in the lead, but he overtook me just before. As always, if you take the final bend in the lead you win. I think we put on a really tough race.”
About 110km into the race there was a crash in the peloton on the cobbles that caught out two of the favorites, world champion Peter Sagan of Tinkoff and three-time former winner Fabian Cancellara of Trek-Segafredo.
Time-trial specialist Martin, Boonen’s teammate, pushed the pace at the front of the peloton as Sagan and Cancellara lost a minute.
After the breakaway was caught, Britain’s Team Sky looked strong 50km out, controlling the pace with four riders in the lead group, but Gianni Moscon then crashed on a tight corner on the cobbles, bringing down team leader Luke Rowe.
Two corners later, Salvatore Puccio also hit the deck, leaving Stannard on his own.
Crashes were also taking their toll elsewhere as Cancellara slipped on the cobbles, bringing down 2014 winner Niki Terpstra of Etixx-QuickStep.
However, Sagan incredibly managed to jump the stricken Swiss rider’s bike and although he came off his seat and off the road, he somehow stayed upright and continued.
That crash ended Cancellara’s hopes of catching up, while Tour des Flandres winner Sagan, who was only 30 seconds back from the lead group, lost another 30 seconds and never again made contact with the leaders.
The cobbles whittled down the lead group to 10, but Vanmarcke attacked inside the final 20km, leaving only five riders in contention.
Vanmarcke, Boonen, Stannard and Boasson Hagen took turns to attack, with Hayman, the rank outsider of the leading group, trying to save energy.
Boonen, Hayman and Vanmarcke entered the velodrome together with Boasson Hagen leading Stannard back to the top three moments later, setting up a five-man sprint.
Hayman seemed freshest and took the racing line to claim the biggest win of his career.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier