Paris-Roubaix 2021 LIVE: Latest updates and result from men’s race after multiple crashes

Follow all the latest updates and reaction as the famous one-day classics race returns for the first time in 18 months

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Italian Sonny Colbrelli won the Paris-Roubaix Monument classic, a 257.7-km ride from Compiegne, on Sunday.

European champion Colbrelli of Team Bahrain Victorious, outsprinted Belgian Florian Vermeersch (Lotto Soudal) and Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix), who were second and third respectively.

Follow all the latest updates and reaction from the iconic race below.

Paris-Roubaix

• Alaphilippe, Van der Poel, Van Aert and Pidcock among favourites
• Lizzie Deignan wins thrilling first women’s Paris-Roubaix

[3 October 2021 12:50 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

137km to go

The lead group now have a 2 minute and 43 second advantage over the bulk of the peloton, with the chasing group about 20 seconds back from the leaders. It doesn’t look like much fun for any of them.

(AFP via Getty Images)

[3 October 2021 12:48 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

139.5km to go

Yep, van der Poel appears pretty untroubled. He’s having a munch on some lunch with his mechanical dealt with and his team helping to pace him back on. Not much phases him, and I don’t think the weather will, given he is someone who opts to spend his winters riding over all manners of terrain in all manners of conditions on the cyclo-cross circuit.

I recall he took an outstanding solo victory in similarly inclement weather at Tirreno-Adriatico earlier this year.

[3 October 2021 12:44 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

141km to go - Mathieu van der Poel off the back!

Now then - what’s happened here? Mathieu van der Poel has had an issue! He’s off the back and swiftly scrambling himself back into proper position. It doesn’t look like a major issue but the peloton has got away from him, and a number of his Alpecin-Fenix teammates scurry back to help their leader. One of those is Silvan Dillier, second in 2018, who will be a very, very useful man to have alongside the debuting Dutchman.

[3 October 2021 12:42 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

142km to go - Yesterday’s news...

Back to today’s action in a moment, but it would be remiss to not pay tribute to Lizzie Deignan at this point. The Trek-Segafredo rider was utterly magnificent, attacking with more than 80km remaining and solo-ing to the finish to take the first ever female crown at the Queen of the Classics.

The only shame was that we did not have coverage of the winning move, but lovely of ASO to finally arrive at the party and introduce a women’s race. On to next year, when it might just be even better!

[3 October 2021 12:39 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

145km to go

Right, the breakaway has started to pull itself apart as the cobbles create some carnage. It looks like a quarter including Ineos Grenadiers’ Luke Rowe has begun to move themselves clear of the rest of the field. Florian Vermeersch (Lotto-Soudal) and Nils Eekhoff (Team DSM) are also in that group.

Now, who is the other mud-marked man? Ah, it’s Max Walscheid of Qhubeka-NextHash. He’s an interesting rider for a day like today. The German came through as a sprinter but has evolved into a big engined time trialist. He’s got size and speed.

[3 October 2021 12:35 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

Paris-Roubaix 2021 - About those cobbles...

I hope the peloton brought their SCUBA gear - it’s wet.

[3 October 2021 12:34 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

Paris-Roubaix 2021 - Who else?

Maybe 40 riders? Paris-Roubaix can be immensely unpredictable, and the wind and the rain only adds to the chance of chaos on the cobbles. I noted down something like 38 names I think could be there or thereabouts at the finish - let’s pick out a few...

Bora-Hansgrohe arrive with 2018 champion Peter Sagan as their nominal leader, but the superb Slovak has looked a little off the pace of late; giant German Nils Politt, 2019 runner-up, might be their better bet. Deceuninck-QuickStep usually populate the top ten in the classics with their shrewd strategies and remarkable roster: there’s virtually no-one in their seven-rider list that will count themselves out of contention, but if we have to choose one, it might be Zdenek Stybar. The Czech is another ex-cyclocrosser with heaps of experience and classics success, but is also a rider for a nasty day, which this Sunday in Hell very much is.

Likewise, 2019 world champion Mads Pedersen is a man of the muck, as those in Yorkshire in two years ago will recall, and you could make a similar argument for Alexander Kristoff, a two-time top-tenner at Paris-Roubaix and twice a monument man. How about some more names - Jasper Stuyven, Sonny Colbrelli, Matej Mohoric, Oliver Naesen, Michael Valgren, Dylan van Baarle...

It could go anywhere.

[3 October 2021 12:25 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

Paris-Roubaix 2021 - The favourites

There are few discussions about classic contenders that fail to mention Wout Van Aert. The multi-faceted, ominpotent Belgian is probably the finest bike rider in the world right now - there is very, very little he cannot do. He’s had bad luck on his previous Paris-Roubaix experiences but was right amongst things before an untimely incident in 2019, and the Jumbo-Visma man has only got better since then. After a disappointing home World Championships in Flanders, he’s a big, big favourite.

If not him, how about his great rival, Mathieu van der Poel? A debutant hasn’t won Paris-Roubaix since, well, yesterday, but van der Poel is not your ordinary debutant. Perhaps an even better cyclo-cross rider than Van Aert, van der Poel has the massive engine, supreme bike handling skills and intense toughness to survive Roubaix. He’s not long back from a troublesome back problem after a heavy crash in the mountain bike at the Olympics, but if he’s fully healthy then watch out. Van der Poel doesn’t tend to win unspectacularly.

Van der Poel (left) and Van Aert will both be confident they can win today (Belga/AFP via Getty Images)

[3 October 2021 12:20 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

Paris-Roubaix 2021 - It’s chucking it down

Oh, how the gods of cycling have treated us. A new autumnal race-date has brought new, autumnal conditions, and the first truly wet Paris-Roubaix since 2002. Not even Movistar’s Imanol Erviti, the most experienced rider in the race, was racing back then, but a good portion of the field will have experienced similarly grim conditions on these roads during the 2014 Tour de France.

Lars Boom, now retired, was the victor on that occasion, with the hardy Dutchman surviving a hectic day on the pavé. Another big winner was Vincenzo Nibali, on his way to the yellow jersey, but he has been too busy tuning up for Il Lombardia with a popular home triumph at the Tour of Sicily than to subject his ageing, unsuited legs to another run to Roubaix. So who might be in contention? Let’s run down some of the leading lights who might just be hoisting a cobble this afternoon...

[3 October 2021 12:15 · Harry Latham-Coyle]

Paris-Roubaix 2021 - On to the cobbles go the big breakaway

After a couple of abridged attempts at forming smaller moves, the day’s breakaway of substance formed after about an hour and a bit of racing. It’s a sizeable group, 29 in number, including 11 debutants and five former top-ten finishers at the race, one of whom is 2017 champion Greg van Avermaet (AG2R Citroen). We’ll get to a fuller run-down of who is away with that group just beginning the opening section of cobbles, but one who isn’t any more is the unfortunate Stefan Kung - the enormous Swiss was tugging that group along with him but slid uncomfortably off of a roundabout and was welcomed back into the peloton...where he’s just crashed again! Desperate luck for Kung.