After 254 km the 111th edition of Paris-Roubaix was decided in a duel on the concrete Roubaix velodrome between Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack Leopard) and Sep Vanmarcke (Blanco). Positioning himself behind Vanmarcke, Cancellara sprinted for the line, taking the win by a bike length and making it three Roubaix victories.
“I was in another world of riding! I still don’t know how I did it. I was dropped and pretty far back but then I started to move up. This is a race you can never give up on until the end. I had to play with him in the end because I tried to go away but he followed so then I knew it was man against man. I’m happy for the team and for me. Now I look forward to rest and a holiday. Mission accomplished,” said Cancellara. "It’s amazing having a third victory. When I see how in this race everyone was against our team, against me, I just had to do a selection. The team came into a little bit of difficulty because we lost a few guys because of bad luck. But that’s Roubaix. It’s always nice to win alone but today there was pure fighting until the very end. I could not believe it when I crossed the finish line. My legs and my head wanted to bring me here."
The finish:
Top 10:
| 1 | Fabian Cancellara (Swi) RadioShack Leopard | 5:45:33 | |
| 2 | Sep Vanmarcke (Bel) Blanco Pro Cycling Team | ||
| 3 | Niki Terpstra (Ned) Omega Pharma-Quick-Step Cycling Team | 0:00:31 | |
| 4 | Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing Team | ||
| 5 | Damien Gaudin (Fra) Team Europcar | ||
| 6 | Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Omega Pharma-Quick-Step Cycling Team | 0:00:39 | |
| 7 | Sebastian Langeveld (Ned) Orica-GreenEdge | ||
| 8 | Juan Antonio Flecha Giannoni (Spa) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team | ||
| 9 | Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha | 0:00:50 | |
| 10 | Sébastien Turgot (Fra) Team Europcar |
Best Italian:
| 21 | Luca Paolini (Ita) Katusha | 0:01:00 |
The Many Faces of Hell:
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