Three Irish riders started Paris-Roubaix and three made it to the finish on the famous velodrome after a drama-filled day.
By Brian Canty
Ryan Mullen has made a brilliant debut at Paris-Roubaix, the 21-year old Irishman finishing 103rd in a large group 18 minutes behind the winner Matt Hayman (Orica-GreenEdge).
On the face of it, it’s some way behind the surprise winner, but for a neo-pro who has been ill recently, Mullen should be very pleased with his display.
He clocked over 158 miles during the six-hour sufferfest but in one of the most attritional races on the WorldTour calendar, it’s a performance he must be hugely encouraged by going forward in his career.
Many riders, including fellow countryman Sam Bennett, were listed as being outside the time limit, though the latter did get to finish the race.
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The only other Irishman was Matt Brammeier of Dimension-Data and he was in the same group as Mullen, two places back in 105th.
That group, incidentally, numbered 28 riders but there were more men further back.
In total, just 119 of the 200 who started were given finishing times, which gives an indication of just how brutal the race was.
Mullen told stickybottle last week that he was excited to compete but knew what hardship lay in store.
And he wasn’t wrong, with the break taking a murderous 60 kilometres to get established.
Incredibly, there were still almost 200km to go, so at that point many had already used up their quota of matches for the day.
Among them, sadly, was Sam Bennett whose job was to cover the early moves and protect the interests of his teammate Andreas Schillinger.
Having missed the break of over 20 riders, Bora-Argon 18 then rode on the front with the help of Etixx-QuickStep who also had no representation up front.
For Bennett, his chances of a result ended early when he was forced to give his front wheel to Schillinger who punctured at the 20th cobbled sector at Monchaux-sur-Ecaillon.
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That came just after the midway point of the race and by the time Bennett actually received a replacement wheel, most of the groups had passed.
And he was then in a race just to make the time limit, which he was never likely to do.
Brammeier was detailed to do what he could for Edvald Boasson Hagen but like so many more, bad luck cost him a chance at being more effective than he'd have liked.
He finished the race but being caught behind so many crashes ended any hopes he had of being with his Norwegian teammate in the final.
The race was one few who witnessed it will ever forget, with so many twists and turns over the course of the day.
Conventional wisdom had Peter Sagan and Fabien Cancellara as the outright favourites but when the latter crashed with 50 kilometres to go as he was bridging a gap to the leaders it spelled the end of his chances.
On his wheel when he hit the ground was Sagan.
And though the Slovak avoided coming down, the group lost its driving force in Cancellara and never merged with the one up ahead.
That played perfectly into the hands of those who were up the road and after a number of more crashes involving Team Sky men, it was whittled down to five riders.
Those were all-day breakaway man Matt Hayman (Orica-GreenEDGE), Ian Stannard (Team Sky), Tom Boonen (Etixx-QuickStep), Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data).
It was a slug fest between that quintet for the closing 10 kilometres with each having a number of digs.
So shattered were they all that no attack managed to stick and coming into the velodrome the five were still together.
Boonen led it into the last corner at 300 metres to go but Hayman summoned the strength to come around him for easily the biggest win of his career.
Stannard managed to edge Vanmarcke for third. We will have interviews with the three Irish riders a little later.
Paris-Roubaix, 258 kilometres
1 Mathew Hayman (Aus) Orica-GreenEdge 05:51:53
2 Tom Boonen (Bel) Etixx - Quick-Step
3 Ian Stannard (GBr) Team Sky
4 Sep Vanmarcke (Bel) Team LottoNl-Jumbo
5 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Dimension Data 00:00:03
6 Heinrich Haussler (Aus) IAM Cycling 00:01:00
7 Marcel Sieberg (Ger) Lotto Soudal
8 Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) IAM Cycling
9 Imanol Erviti Ollo (Spa) Movistar Team 00:01:07
10 Adrien Petit (Fra) Direct Energie 00:01:20
103 Ryan Mullen (IRL) Cannondale Cycling Team 00:18:30
105 Matt Brammeier (IRL) Dimension Data 00:18:30
Sam Bennett (IRL) Bora-Argon 18 OTL
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