Contrasting fortunes at Trek-Segafredo as Elisa Longo Borghini wins while Elisa Balsamo is disqualified

After last year’s brutal first Paris-Roubaix for the women, anticipation had been high for the second edition. But in a tale of two Elisa’s, Italian national champion Longo Broghini grabbed a brilliant victory for Trek-Segafredo while her team mate Balsamo, the current world champion, was disqualified. So how did it go so right for one and so wrong for the other?

Balsamo was one of the pre-race favourites. Both riders had been mentioned in dispatches, but Balsamo had the better form going into this famous race, having won Gent–Wevelgem and Classic Brugge–De Panne already this season. She was the de facto team leader for Paris-Roubaix, and what a strong team she had at her disposal. Along with Longo Borghini, Trek-Segafredo could boast Lucinda Brand, Ellen van Dijk, Chloe Hosking and Audrey Cordon.

Safely in the bunch in the early stages, there were no indications that this one was going to unravel in incredible fashion for the young Italian. But she suffered a rear wheel puncture over the five-star Mons-en-Pévèle, the seventh segment of cobbles. Limping to the end of that sector onto the flat tarmac, Balsamo had lost significant time to the peloton. Usually the team would be expected to send a rider back to help her regain that lost time, but things weren’t straightforward for Trek-Segafredo at that exact point in time.

Van Dijk had suffered an earlier puncture herself, and had expanded a huge amount of energy to recover back to the peloton. Hosking had crashed with a puncture, and to further complicate matters, the team had Brand in a breakaway that looked to be gaining traction at the front of the race.

The decision was made to not help Balsamo get back to the bunch, leaving the Italian with a metaphorical mountain to climb as the peloton rolled through a smooth section of road at quite a pace. She did manage to get to the back just as they hit more cobbles, nearly losing control as her bike skewed from under her as she collided with an uneven patch of the pave.

But all of that had surely taken it out of her. And so, when she dropped back to a team car briefly to grab a fresh water bottle, she experienced the curious case of the ‘sticky bottle’. It’s a well-known phenomenon in cycling that allows the rider a few seconds of respite as they hold onto the bottle and are effectively drafted by the team car, but in this case, it went on a few seconds longer than could be deemed accidental, acceptable or even remotely defendable, and worse – it was caught on camera for all to see.

The commissaires had no choice but to disqualify the rider, but in doing so, they opened the door for her team mate to take victory.

Longo Borghini had been minding her own business in the peloton, possibly relieved she hadn’t been asked to drop back to her team mate’s aid. With Brand ahead in the break, she wasn’t expected to work on the front and as such, had relatively fresh legs.

But as the peloton finally reeled in the dangerous three rider break, and at the exact same time as news of Balsamo’s disqualification was filtering through, Longo Borghini launched her attack.

It wasn’t a half-hearted effort either. She knew this was her one chance, while the peloton behind regrouped. She motored on, quickly building a 30’ lead, double that which the break of her team mate had been allowed. Surviving one moment of bravado on the cobbles as she took a corner too fast and nearly lost control, from there on in it was pure concentration for the Italian.

While van Dijk had managed to make it back to the peloton, she joined her Trek-Segafredo team mate Brand and neither were going to chase Longo Borghini down. That left a very small number of riders to try and organise themselves and mount a counter-attack, and so late in the race, they simply didn’t have the legs.

After Lizzie Deignan’s solo breakaway last year, the British rider had expressed doubt that anyone would let a similar audacious solo attack get away, having learned to their cost how effective that can be over the difficult Paris-Roubaix course. But they let Longo Borghini go, and it proved every bit as costly.

Longo Borghini’s attack was different to her team mate’s win last year – she left it a lot later, and didn’t wait for the cobbles to build an advantage. But like Deignan, she embraced the chaos and utilised the confusion that was sewn from both her team mate’s disqualification and the very dangerous break being reeled back in to launch her attack.

Very differing fortunes for the Trek-Segafredo riders once again, but for the second year running they take home the Paris-Roubaix trophy. And as for Elisa Longo-Borghini, she showed an impeccable sense of timing to take her maiden victory of the season.

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