Eventual winner Taylor Phinney leads heading into the last lap in Roubaix.(Image credit: Etienne Garnier)
Runner-up Jens Debusschere (Pws-Eijssen Cycling Team) on the podium(Image credit: Daniel Simms)
The first big group comes around the banking inside the Roubaix velodrome.(Image credit: James Huang)
Paris-Roubaix Espoirs will not be held in 2011 due to the prohibitive cost of policing the event. The race, organised by the storied V.C. Roubaix club, began as the amateur version of the Queen of the Classics in 1967 and had taken place without interruption ever since.
“The event is recognised but there aren’t very many benefits,” V.C. Roubaix president Jean-Charles Cannone explained to La Voix du Nord. “Furthermore, the cost of the police marshalling of the race is going up from €2.40 an hour to €12 an hour. It’s unthinkable! We’d need €20,000’s worth.”
The money V.C. Roubaix saves by not hosting the event will instead be put towards the purchase of equipment for young riders at the club. V.C. Roubaix is also planning to create a centre of excellence at the new covered velodrome that is to be built in the town. Construction work begins in January and the project is expected to be completed in early 2012.
American Taylor Phinney won the last two editions of Paris-Roubaix Espoirs in 2009 and 2010 and some famous names feature on the race’s roll of honour. Marc Madiot (1979), Stephen Roche (1980), Frédéric Moncassin (1989), Thor Hushovd (1998) and Yaroslav Popovych (2001) are among those to have triumphed in the event.
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Barry Ryan was Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
