Peter Sagan (centre) won Paris-Roubaix ahead of Silvan Dillier (left) and Niki Terpstra CREDIT: AP
Peter Sagan became the first world champion since Bernard Hinault in 1981 to win Paris-Roubaix following an awe-inspiring display of strength and panache in northern France on Sunday.
After going into the race off the back of a relatively disappointing classics season – Sagan added just Ghent-Wevelgem to his palmarès during the spring campaign – the Bora-Hansgrohe rider responded to criticism in some style on Sunday with a long-range attack reminiscent of Tom Boonen's fourth and final win here in 2012.
With around 55 kilometres of the 257km race remaining and trailing a four-man group by 20sec, Sagan accelerated from a group containing a number of the pre-race favourites including defending champion Greg Van Avermaet and the in-form Niki Terpstra. Despite Sagan's obvious threat there was no response, perhaps a sign of the Slovakian's strength.
Sagan crosses the line to become the first world champion to win Paris-Roubaix since 1981 CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES
A serene looking Sagan, who until Sunday had just one monument of cycling – the Tour of Flanders – on his palmarès, drifted up the road towards the race leaders before further injections of pace saw the group whittled down to two.
Swiss national road race champion Silvan Dillier, in fact, stayed with Sagan all the way to the velodrome in the post-industrial town of Roubaix where he led the way onto the smooth concrete track after almost six hours in the saddle.
Despite the Swiss's sterling effort, though, Dillier was unable to hold off Sagan once the world champion opened up his sprint and dived below the Ag2r-La Mondiale rider towards the line.
"Amazing. I'm so tired after this race. I avoided crashes, and, actually, I feel less tired than the previous years," Sagan said afterwards.
"Thank you to all my team-mates. They did a great job, keeping everyone altogether. And in the end I made the winning move."
Terpstra, who won the race in 2014, finished in third spot.
