Paris-Roubaix 2010

The road

At the start

Boonen for four, Cancellara for the double

Compiègne stands for a minute's silence for Franco Ballerini, then rides at 259 kilometres and 52.9 of pavé. Tom Boonen is the defending champion hunting a fourth cobblestone; Fabian Cancellara won here in 2006 and won Flanders eight days ago, and Saxo Bank will police the day around him. Flecha and Hushovd have come through the spring quietly strong, and David Millar has rarely ridden better.

How it was won

1. 194 km to go

   Trouée d'Arenberg

   Saxo Bank use the run-in to the forest as their cue and the peloton arrives at the trench flying. The cobbles are dry for once, so the crashes stay away — but the selection does not. Cancellara and Boonen lead the bunch through the gloom shoulder to shoulder, and out the far side the nineteen-man break has less than a minute left.

2. 271 km to go

   Sky light the fuse at Tilloy

   Team Sky hit sector 14 at full tilt and the back of the peloton simply detaches. David Millar is one of the men who cannot follow. What is left at the front is thirty riders and no more hiding places.

3. 368 km to go

   Boonen throws everything

   Past the second feed zone the last four escapees — Wynants, Hansen, Hunt, Sutton — are swallowed. The defending champion goes on the offensive, acceleration after acceleration over ten kilometres of road, and every one of them is shut down without apparent effort. Cancellara will say afterwards that he simply refused to play Boonen's game.

4. 449 km to go

   Mons-en-Pévèle, and the race ends

   Between sector 11 and sector 10 Boonen slides to the back of the group for a moment's breath, and Fabian Cancellara chooses that exact second to leave. He is gone before anyone reacts, and on the three thousand metres of Mons-en-Pévèle he turns a gap into a chasm — big gear, hands low, the pavé apparently smooth beneath him. Up the road Hoste, Hinault and Leukemans have a small lead of their own; he takes all three, drops two immediately and shakes off Leukemans soon after. With more than fifty kilometres to ride, Paris-Roubaix has a winner.

5. 543 km to go

   Half a minute already

   Boonen's counter fails to reach the Swiss but shreds what is behind: Flecha, Leukemans, Pozzato, Hoste, Hushovd, Hammond and Hinault, eight riders racing for second. By the time Cancellara rattles onto the Mérignies cobbles the deficit is over thirty seconds and climbing.

6. 617 km to go

   Carrefour de l'Arbre

   The cruellest sector of the lot, and Cancellara crosses it alone with nearly three minutes in hand, dust caked over a fixed grimace. Behind, the Carrefour finally splits the chase for good: Flecha and Hushovd ride clear, Boonen, Pozzato, Hammond and Leukemans are left to fight over fourth.

7. 7At the line

   The Roubaix velodrome

   Off the last cobbles he drifts across to the team car for high-fives, then pulls the little gold angel his wife and daughter gave him before Flanders out of his jersey pocket. Half a lap with his hands on the bars, then arms up, then tears on the infield: the Flanders-Roubaix double, the first in five years. Two minutes later Hushovd swings inside Flecha on the final banking for second.

The result