At the Paris-Roubaix Femmes start line in Denain, neither Katia Ragusa (Liv Racing TeqFind) nor Marthe Truyen (Fenix-Deceuninck) expected to sprint for victory. But a few hours later, they stood on the podium in the Roubaix velodrome in second and third place, respectively. Both of them concentrated on the result they achieved rather than the victory they missed.
"It feels like a victory. Before the race, I was hoping for a top 20 and now I'm third," said Truyen at the post-race press conference.
"The plan of the team was to go in the breakaway, anticipate the first sectors and take it easy with less stress than in the bunch. The initial breakaway was really big with 18 riders. We had a big gap, and it went well," Ragusa said of the first hour of racing when the eventual winning move formed and was almost six minutes ahead.
Truyen had been given the same objective as Ragusa: "It was my task to be in the breakaway. I was really happy with it. I knew from men's racing that it has a big chance, maybe not to win, but to help the leaders of the team in the final," the Belgian added.
"I come from cyclocross, and I really like the cobbles. It's from when I was at home. After Samyn, I was dreaming about Roubaix. I'm from Belgium and most people think that the Tour of Flanders is my dream race but at this moment it's Paris-Roubaix," Truyen declared her love for the 'Hell of the North'.
As the race went on and the favourites started to eat into the breakaway's gap, Ragusa received encouragement from her team.
"During the race for me, it was hard to think that we can make it. But from the car they said, 'you can make it and ride for the win for sure, come on, you are strong and you can go'. In the first kilometres I took it easy, but kilometre by kilometre it became the feeling that I could do something really big. This morning at the start I couldn't imagine that I would come second," she explained.
In the final ten kilometres, the break's advantage over the group of favourites went up and down between 10 and 20 seconds, and Truyen only believed they could make it to the finish when they were about to enter the velodrome.
"I thought we'd be caught by 20 or 30 riders. So I thought we would compete for the win with 30 or 40 riders. But then I would have my teammates with me, it was a perfect situation for us. In sector 2 we gave everything we had one last time, and the gap was bigger again. Then in the last kilometre, I looked behind me and the gap was still a few seconds, then I realised that we could sprint for the victory," Truyen looked back.
In the end, it came down to a sprint between six riders as Femke Markus (Team SD Worx) crashed in the first turn of the final lap.
"I thought if I could anticipate at the entrance but the speed was high so I couldn't go away. I was in third position, I stayed up on the velodrome and then I gave everything that I had," Ragusa described the sprint where she came past Marion Borras (St Michel-Mavic-Auber 93) on the home straight and narrowly beat Truyen to second place.
"I never raced or trained on the track, so maybe more was possible. I felt really strong in the last 50 metres, coming out of the last corner really fast. Maybe it was possible but I'm also really happy with third," Truyen finished.
