Mathieu van der Poel Should Let It Ride
Can Alpecin-Deceuninck sweep the monuments?
Paris-Roubaix was a bit of a mixed bag, entertainment-wise. The women’s race featured a thrilling finish; Lotte Kopecky—undeterred by her rough time at Ronde van Vlaanderen the previous weekend—put her white bib shorts back on and won her first Paris-Roubaix title.
Kopecky was isolated in the leading group, and seemingly outgunned in the sprint by Elisa Balsamo—who had teammate Ellen van Dijk pulling the favorites along—and Marianne Vos. When the sprint started on the Roubaix velodrome, Kopecky found herself completely boxed in, and headed into the final turn she was a good three bike lengths out of the lead, but she kept on chug-chug-chugging along to squeak past a fading Vos and Balsamo to win by a wheel. In hindsight, Kopecky’s isolation might not have been a bad thing; if their group had been caught, Lorena Wiebes would’ve been able to contest the sprint, and that would’ve been sayonara for the rest of the field. Therefore Kopecky was able to rest for most of the final 10 kilometers, which might’ve given her the final extra bit of juice she needed to hold her sprint longer than two ostensibly quicker competitors. Pfeiffer Georgi took third place despite trading paint with her own teammate and hitting the deck late in the race. Fun stuff.
And not to be blasé about another world-beating van der Poel attack, but he went solo with 60 kilometers to go and stayed gone until the finish. Jasper Philipsen came second for the second year in a row1, with Mads Pedersen in tow. Not bad for my predictions, all things considered.
The greatest drama of the men’s race came when a fan threw a cap at van der Poel during his solo raid, which is some seriously fucked-up shit if you ask me!
If the hat had either startled van der Poel into wiping out, or gotten caught in his spokes or gears—and I can’t think of another reason to throw detritus at a speeding cyclist in any context, race or not—van der Poel would’ve eaten shit on the cobbles at 30 miles an hour. Feels like we know that’s bad for you, to say nothing of how it would externally influence a major sporting event. That doesn’t rise to the level of attempted assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, but it’s a serious societal booboo nonetheless.
The CPA2 is urging French authorities to pursue legal action, and they’re damn right to do so. If we’re going to have a criminal justice system at all, this kind of behavior should be prosecuted.
I go back and forth about the entertainment value of streakers and pitch invaders; on one hand, it’s fun and rebellious and irreverent, and there’s occasional amusing public nudity. On the other, running onto the field of play at a sporting event just for shits and giggles is an inherently selfish act, which prioritizes one person’s thrills over the desire of thousands to watch the game. So aesthetically, I think it depends on the pitch invader.
With that said, my views on fan interference, from a policy perspective, are positively right-wing. Every time a drunk college student leaps over the outfield fence at a baseball game, we don’t know what his intentions are until it’s too late to stop it. I like watching the rent-a-cops slip and slide as much as the next guy, but there’s always a moment where I think about Monica Seles, or former Kansas City Royals coach Tom Gamboa. And I’d rather go the rest of my life without another fun streaker rather than have that happen anywhere ever again.
It’s been a very preachy week here at Wheelysports. I promise I’ll knock it off and get to the fun stuff. Specifically, the following question: Can Alpecin-Deceuninck sweep the monuments?