Sam Bennett on the cobbles of Paris Roubaix; checking out the pavé in advance of the race tomorrow, Sunday.
By Graham Healy
Ireland’s Sam Bennett will tomorrow, Sunday, attempt to achieve something that neither Shay Elliott nor Sean Kelly did; to finish Paris-Roubaix at his first attempt.
Due to the difficulty of its parcours, The Hell of the North always has a high attrition rate. And making it to the velodrome in Roubaix would be considered another great achievement for the 23 year-old.
Elliott’s first attempt at the race was in his debut season in 1956 when he abandoned. Two years later, as a 23 year-old, he would come close to winning.
Likewise, Kelly also made his debut in his first year as a professional. He admitted later that his first experience of the race had been one of shock; though he would go on to win the race twice, in 1984 and 1986.
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In fact, the only Irishman to finish the race at his first attempt is Stephen Roche. He came home in 39th place in 1981, having won the amateur version the previous year.
Current national road champion, Matt Brammeier rode the race in 2011, and although he made it to the finish he was outside the time limit, and therefore was not officially listed amongst the finishers though most would count that ride as a finish.
The first half of the race usually follows the same format, whereby an early breakaway goes clear and they tend to build up quite a substantial lead.
In the peloton, the real action starts when they hit the first section of pavé. This is when the field starts to disintegrate.
Undoubtedly, Bennett will be told by his directeur sportif to stay near the front and out of trouble, but the problem is that every other rider in the race will be told exactly the same thing.
Bennett has shown this season that he’s not afraid of fighting for his position at the front of the bunch, and this positioning will be key.
He was seen recceing a number of sectors of pave yesterday, along with his team mates. He has said he will play a support role within the team, unlike many races this year suiting the fast men where he has been protected rider.
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Speaking to stickybottle in recent days, he said with his team duties done tomorrow he would love to then focus on himself in the second half of the race and finish it.
The riders will have 28 sectors to face in total, and the cobbles are in much worse condition than what he would have raced over in Belgium.
The American rider Chris Horner gave a memorable description of what the pavé of Paris-Roubaix is like, saying: “The best I could do would be to describe it like this — they plowed a dirt road, flew over it with a helicopter, and then just dropped a bunch of rocks out of the helicopter! That's Paris–Roubaix. It's that bad — it's ridiculous."
The significance of a rider making it to the finish was shown last year by Irish-born Danish international and Tinkoff-Saxo rider Chris Juul Jensen who was last man home.
At the finish, rather than using the shower on his team bus, he used the historic showers at the velodrome, which have plaques marking previous winners of the race.
Afterwards Jensen said: “You can pull out of many races where you just don’t really give a fuck. But here you’d have such an enormous sense of regret.”
Here’s hoping that Bennett can also make it to the finish in Roubaix in this year’s race.
There were few fans on the pavé sections when Bennett and his team mates did a dry run the past couple of days, though these remote lanes will be packed tomorrow when the carnage unfolds.
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