Paris-Roubaix: O’Grady Makes it Two in a Row for CSC

By Jessica | Permalink |

No Comments | April 15th, 2007 | Trackback

There are some parties going on in Australia right now - Stuart O’Grady just became the first Aussie to win Paris-Roubaix.

O’Grady was in a breakaway group early on, and still had enough left to take off when it counted. It was a hot day today, so perhaps that played into his favor? Either way, it’s a fantastic win for a guy who’s been aggressive all season long. His teammate and last year’s winner, Fabian Cancellara, looked like he was doing well earlier and then something happened. We still have no idea what it was, but it looked like it could have been something health-related - like a cramp or a stomach thing. He dropped to the back of the group he was in - which also included Tom Boonen - and never made it back. Boonen worked his arse off, and managed sixth place overall.

Eventually there will be a writeup here from CyclingNews, and here’s the top ten on the day:

1 Stuart O’Grady (Aus) Team CSC 6.09.07
2 Juan Antonio Flecha (Spa) Rabobank
3 Steffen Wesemann (Swi) Team Wiesenhof Felt
4 Björn Leukemans (Bel) Predictor-Lotto
5 Roberto Petito (Ita) Liquigas
6 Tom Boonen (Bel) Quickstep-Innergetic
7 Roger Hammond (GBr) T-Mobile Team
8 Enrico Franzoi (Ita) Lampre-Fondital
9 Kevin Van Impe (Bel) Quickstep-Innergetic
10 Fabio Baldato (Ita) Lampre-Fondital

And check out this interview with Stuey on CyclingNews from the other day. From the header, “With last year’s winner Fabian Cancellara as team leader, Stuart O’Grady will be dedicated to helping the Swiss rider to a repeat victory, but could end up having his own chance to vie for victory.” Yes, yes he could.

UPDATE: From the CyclingNews writeup comes this news of more firsts for O’Grady:

In addition to first Australian, he became the first English-speaking rider since the great Sean Kelly to win Paris-Roubaix, and not only the first Australian to win Paris-Roubaix, but indeed the first cyclist from any Commonwealth country to win this race (Kelly is from Eire, which is not part of the Commonwealth). And the last time O’Grady won a race on a velodrome, it was nothing less than a Gold medal in the Madison at the Athens 2004 Olympics (with Graeme Brown).