Paris-Roubaix 2011

The road

At the start

Boonen for a fourth, out of Compiègne

Twenty-seven sectors of pavé today, five of them new, and three of the new ones sit immediately before the Trouée d'Arenberg so the forest arrives with the race already at full gallop. Tom Boonen starts for a fourth Roubaix and Roger De Vlaeminck's record; Fabian Cancellara defends the title he won here a year ago; Peter Sagan wants something back after Flanders.

How it was won

1. 193 km to go

   The charge to the forest

   Ten kilometres out from Arenberg the peloton goes to full speed to be at the front, and it starts costing people. Haussler and Hammond go down, and Hincapie punctures with the trees already in sight.

2. 285 km to go

   Boonen's chain in the Trouée

   Riders are strewn the length of the Drève des Boules d'Hérin. Geraint Thomas takes a wheel off Wiggins after a flat, and then the camera finds Tom Boonen standing beside his bike in the middle of the forest with his chain off. His shot at a fourth Roubaix ends there, in the gloom, waiting.

3. 349 km to go

   Cancellara lights Mons-en-Pévèle

   Vaitkus and Vanmarcke jump clear just before the five-star sector, reading the room perfectly. On the cobbles Cancellara puts in an enormous effort and only Hushovd, Flecha and Ballan can hold him — and up the road the leaders are still a minute clear with forty kilometres left.

4. 439 km to go

   Nobody will work with him

   At Pont-Thibaut he goes again and this time only Hushovd survives it, with Ballan clawing back after the pavé. But neither man will take a turn — nobody wants to lead out the Flanders scenario a second time — and by Cysoing the sixteen leaders have stretched their advantage back to a minute.

5. 520 km to go

   Bak splits the break

   Guesdon flats out of the lead group, and just before Camphin-en-Pévèle, Lars Bak accelerates. Only three men have anything left to answer with: Rast, Tjallingii and a rangy Belgian who has spent his career riding for other people, Johan Van Summeren.

6. 615 km to go

   Cancellara's last throw

   Fifteen kilometres out, a minute down and out of patience, the world time trial champion goes on his own account, hauling Hushovd along and picking off the remains of the break. It is magnificent and it is not enough. Ahead of him, Van Summeren has already gone clear of Bak, Rast and Tjallingii.

7. 7At the line

   The Roubaix velodrome

   At the flamme rouge Van Summeren looks over his shoulder and there is nobody there. He rolls onto the concrete in blazing sunshine, a thirty-year-old who has spent a decade fetching bottles for other men, and takes the closing lap with both arms up. Cancellara, beaten by a break he could never quite reach, arrives nineteen seconds later.

The result