A Trek-Segafredo rider is alone in the lead and is racing to victory. This second women’s edition of Paris-Roubaix may have been mistaken for the first, when Lizzie Dienan won. But this time her teammate, Italian champion Elisa Longo Borghini was the strongest. Starting in the second cobbled sector in Templov, the 30-year-old Piedmont resisted the return of a strong SD Worx team led by the still in good shape Lotte Kubicki. In the final race on the Vélodrome de Roubaix, it was Lotte Kubicki who outperformed Lucinda Brand Whoever comes out of it is better to go and take the podium at the “Hell of the North.”

His formidable attack took place 54 km from the end in the sector from Auchy-lez-Orchies to Bersée. Only the very comfortable Marta Bastianelli followed, and Lucinda Brand a little later. But having been examined in full view of the peloton, this trio of separatists were captured in the Templeuve sector and witnessed the immediate onslaught of the Italian heroine, Elisa Longo Borghini. At the same time the world champion Elisa Balsamo learned of her disqualification at 37 km due to a stuck bottle.

But in the Cysoing sector in Bourghelles (26 km from the finish), the riders of the extremely powerful SD Worx formation took matters into their own hands under first Lotte Kopecky, then Chantal Van den Broek-Blak to return within ten seconds of the leader. This effort would be in vain, due to the lack of collaboration with Trek Ellen Van Dijk and Lucinda Brand.