When entering the Roubaix velodrome, Matys Grisel didn’t really have time to take advantage. Launched in pursuit of Paul Fietzke (Team Auto Eder, the Bora youth team – hansgrohe) who started with the red flame, the young 17-year-old rider had other fish to fry. But a minute later, after having beaten the competition to the wire, the Picard, quickly congratulated by his teammates, was able to let his joy burst.
Starting against 25 kilometers from the finish, before the formidable Carrefour de l’Arbre, the great hope of the AG2R-Citroën formation (he plays with the U19 team) took with him his Australian teammate, Oscar Chamberlain. “I was asked to go, and Oscar was in my wheel so we left in pairs. At the start, I was not very well, but it got better and better”, says the one who had already taken the 10e place of the race in 2022, at only 16 years old.
“We didn’t really do any tactics”
After 20 animated kilometers, punctuated by a fall in the peloton, the failure of one of the first breakaways and the return of a group of three, Paul Fietzke therefore tried the kilometer shot. “I was a bit dead and with Oscar, we didn’t really do any tactics,” admits Matys Grisel. To get back in the wheels of the German, Grisel therefore decided to give everything, taking with him his teammate and the Dane Theodor Storm. Coming out of the last bend, the trio held off by a few centimeters… But the Frenchman ended up taking a few millimeters lead when crossing the line.
“I’m so happy, because it’s my dream race”, smiles the 21e winner in the history of a race which has already seen Thomas Pidcock (2019), Mads Pedersen (2013), Florian Sénéchal (2011) or even Geraint Thomas (2004) register their names on the list. Enough to predict a great future for this perfectionist, who had recognized the cobblestone sectors four times in recent weeks. The mark of the big ones.
