Thursday 3 November 2016 13:30, UK
Even by Paris-Roubaix’s standards, the 2016 edition was a thriller.
Mathew Hayman emerged victorious after a five-man leading group fought out a sprint finish in the Roubaix Velodrome.
Here, we discuss the race's main talking points…
Hayman's victory was as much of an outside bet as Leicester City winning the Premier League: not impossible but a long shot in the extreme.
Not only did the 37-year-old have only two other professional wins to his name, but he also broke his arm six weeks ago and had missed all of the previous spring classics this year.
What it therefore proved is that form is not the be all and end all at Paris-Roubaix and that anyone can win given the right amount determination, fitness and fortune.
Yes, you need to be a powerful rider to be in contention, but as long as you avoid the race's many hazards and just do enough to reach the final 10km still in the hunt, heavy underdogs can stand just as good a chance of winning as clear favourites.
One of the fundamental rules of cycling is to stay as close to the front of the peloton as possible. It minimises the risk and consequences of crashes, and puts riders in the best position to launch or respond to attacks.
So why, then, were Peter Sagan and Fabian Cancellara - the two race favourites - more than 30 riders down the peloton when a crash caused a split with 115km to go? And even more pertinently, why were they so far back on a cobbled section?
Both were caught out by the split and neither saw the front of the race again. It was not a mistake made by the likes of Tom Boonen, Ian Stannard, Sep Vanmarcke and Edvald Boasson Hagen, who all went on to achieve top-five finishes.
Had Sagan and Cancellara been in the first 10 riders in the peloton with 115km to go, or even first 20, the outcome of the race could have been very different.
It was a combination of poor positioning and the crash that led to Sagan and Cancellara being initially dropped, but it was the subsequent riding of Boonen's Etixx - Quick-Step team-mate Tony Martin at the head of the front group that really stuck a knife into their hopes of winning.
Once a small gap had been opened up, the three-time world time-trial champion - also known as 'Der Panzerwagen' - set a relentless pace for the next 30km and didn't peel off until Sagan and Cancellara's deficit was a minute and a half.
It was a magnificent, bulldozing display from the German and although it used up all of his reserves, leaving Boonen to fend for himself, the damage was already done and Cancellara and Sagan were effectively out of the race. It was superb tactics from Etixx - Quick-Step.
The issue of motorbikes and their proximity to riders in races unfortunately surfaced once more at Paris-Roubaix, after Team Sky's Elia Viviani was struck and had to be taken hospital.
The accident happened on one of the most difficult and notorious sections of cobbles on the whole route, the Trouee d'Arenberg, when a crash blocked the road and the race motorbike ploughed into the back of Viviani.
Scans showed that the Italian suffered no serious injuries, but coming just two weeks after Belgian rider Antoine Demoitie was killed in a collision with a motorbike, the incident proved lessons are still not being learnt by cycling authorities and race organisers.
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