Greig Leach

With the race leader now three minutes up the road, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), and Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates) have resigned themselves to racing for second place in this edition of Paris Roubaix. Last year it was Philipsen coming in a distant second to his teammate currently up the road, Mathieu Van Der Poel. Pedersen was fourth last year, and would dearly like to make it onto the podium this year. Politt was in the top ten last year as well. This year has been both faster and dryer, but equally exciting (despite knowing who would win the race for the least forty kilometers). As expected, the sprinter Philipsen took second again, and Pedersen moved up to third this year. Politt missed the podium finishing fourth on the day. But in a race that just finishing is a feet, fourth and bad! The stats are that only 110 finished inside the time limit, with another 18 coming in too late to have their results counted. Another 43 did not finished the race, with just one rider being disqualified. Three who were scheduled to start today were unable to even start the Hell of the North.