In a 120th This edition of Paris-Roubaix is as memorable as it is historic (speed record broken), Stefan Küng completely held his ground this Sunday. The Swiss rider immediately responded when the big fight broke out, more than one hundred kilometers from the finish in the Haveluy and Trouée d’Arenberg sectors. Alongside the main favorites of the event, the leader of the Groupama-FDJ cycling team remained in the leading group until the decisive Carrefour de l’Arbre. In this section, Mathieu van der Poel flew to the crown, and Stefan Küng fought hard to finally reach the velodrome in fifth position. After the Tour of Flanders last Sunday (6e), “King Küng” obtains his second top-10 in two Monuments this season.
Third Monument of Spring, Paris-Roubaix was also, this Sunday, the end of the great 2023 epic of the Cobbled Classics. And it is therefore the “Queen” of them, the most paved of all, and undoubtedly the most legendary, which 175 warriors were attacking, between Compiègne and Roubaix. A total of 54.5 kilometers of cobblestones spread over twenty-nine sectors awaited the peloton from the hundredth kilometer of the route, but before that, many competitors wanted to anticipate the explanation of the favorites. So numerous that it took nearly two hours for a quartet to manage to extricate themselves. Jonas Koch (Bora-hansgrohe), Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), Sjoerd Bax (UAE Team Emirates) and Juri Hollmann (Movistar) actually took control, but in reality never took the field. The peloton stayed two minutes behind, contributing, with the help of the favorable wind, to posting a crazy average speed over the first two hours of the race. “The shot went fifteen kilometers before the cobblestones, and since the approach to the cobblestones is always nervous, it was always fast in the end.indicated Frédéric Guesdon. At the start of the race, Miles and Jake were designated to protect Stefan, while Sam simply had to be vigilant if a big blow hit the cobblestones”. While a few crashes punctuated the first sectors, Groupama-FDJ was relatively spared at first. On the other hand, its Swiss leader was forced to change bikes 130 km from the end. “He had a problem with the seat post, which bent a little during the third sector, Frederic explained. The change took quite a long time because we were behind several groups. They had to change bikes between them, just before we helped him out, but we didn’t come out too badly. There were people to help him and we didn’t waste a lot of time.
“I gave the maximum, but I was just completely drained in the end”, Stefan Küng
Stefan Küng regained his place in the pack before a series of three sectors, then moved up to the outposts upstream of sector number 20 from Haveluy to Wallers. Just before this crucial moment, Miles Scotson also launched an offensive and found himself thirty seconds ahead of the pack. “He talked to Stefan and found the opening to get a head start, Frederic said. The goal was not to leave Stefan alone and to have people to place him before Haveluy, but we were full. If we could pass Arenberg with a guy in front to help Stefan, that was ideal, and that’s why we let Miles go. Behind the Australian, the vice-world champion in the time trial was perfectly put into orbit by his colleagues at the entrance to Haveluy, and this proved to be a crucial movement for the rest of the day. “The Jumbo-Vismas hit hard at that point, and the race was on in earnest.said Stefan. We were a hundred kilometers from the finish, and from there, it was full throttle until the end.. Led by Samuel Watson on the first hectometres of the sector, the Swiss then made the forcing to plug a hole on Christophe Laporte, Wout Van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel and John Degenkolb. It was with them that he emerged with a small margin over the rest of the competition, and with the Trouée d’Arenberg in his sights. “We knew that the Haveluy sector was going to be fast, because it’s always an important point before Arenberg, but we were less expecting the decisive blow to go there, confided Frederic. This shows that we must always be vigilant. From kilometer 0 to the finish, a lot can happen at any time”. In the Trouée d’Arenberg, emblem of the Hell of the North, this small group of favorites recovered the breakaways, before being joined by other strong men such as Mads Pedersen, Filippo Ganna or Jasper Philipsen. Laporte, on the other hand, was distanced on a puncture.
At 90 kilometers, it was therefore a group of thirteen riders who clearly broke away from the rest and quickly relegated the second stage of the race to about two minutes. Some counterattacks were initiated in the process, but the leading group always maintained a solid pace, which moreover had the consequence of reducing it to seven units at the exit of the dreaded sector of Mons-en-Pévèle, at a forty kilometers from the goal. Here, Mathieu van der Poel launched a first attack, which put his rivals in difficulty before everything was back to normal a few moments later. At the start of the final, Küng still had to face the Dutchman, Van Aert, Pedersen, Ganna, Degenkolb and Philipsen. “We had to manage, be very vigilant in certain sectors, then we knew that it was going to be done to the leg in the Carrefour de l’Arbre”, Frederic added. And it was there, seventeen kilometers from the goal that everything was decided. A fall from Degenkolb first created a break, then Van Aert and Van der Poel isolated themselves before the Belgian suffered a puncture. A few lengths behind, Stefan Küng could not get involved in this battle. The Swiss found himself in a third group with Ganna, then Pedersen in the very last kilometers. Less than a minute after Mathieu van der Poel, winner, he arrived for fourth place but finally snagged fifth on the line. At the end of his strength. “It was still a very, very tough race.pointed out Stefan. As we could see, all the runners were cooked at the finish, and I couldn’t do anything more. I did with my means and I gave the maximum, but I was just completely drained in the final while others still had a cartridge. I can thank my team for protecting me well in the first part of the race, and we will come back”.
“Stefan deserves to win a nice one”, Frederic Guesdon
A year after taking his place on the third step of the “Hell of the North”, Stefan Küng was therefore quite content with a very convincing top-5 in this 120th insane edition, at the record average speed (46.8 km/h). “There was no photo, the strongest were in front, judged Frederic. Considering the race, he couldn’t do much better. It really happened to the leg and we can’t have any regrets. This fifth place still confirms his third place last year and his good recent Classics. We see that he is turning around and we hope that he will come back to win. He rarely misses, but he now deserves to win a good one. He is placed all the time, and it is time for victory to arrive. “I hope it will smile on me in the futureslipped Stefan again. We will continue to work. It’s always very satisfying to play up front, but I hope one day I can be as strong as Mathieu van der Poel was today.”. The Swiss rider has in any case confirmed his status as a strong man in the Classics, a week after a convincing sixth place in the Ronde. The Groupama-FDJ cycling team concludes its cobbled Classics campaign with a top-10 on each of the two Monuments, and a double top-10 on the E3 Saxo Classic. “We hoped to do better than last year, but we knew it was going to be difficult because we had performed really well with a podium in Flanders and Roubaix, finally reminded Frédéric. I think we still succeeded in our campaign, we confirmed our performances from last year and it’s rather positive. We would have liked to win or make a podium, but the level was extremely high. It smiled a little less on us than last year but we are still in the balls”. In a short week, the “Ardennaises” group will take over for the Amstel Gold Race. Stefan Küng, meanwhile, will take a well-deserved break before returning to competition next month during the Tour of Italy, which will present many objectives, including timekeeping.
