6th Paris-Roubaix Femmes, April 12th, 2026

[Sciatic]

which I think in a normal road finish sprint, she would have won, but I mentioned this in the mens race, the Roubaix sprint is very different to what they normally deal with at the end of a race, it does end up becoming alot more about track sprint tactics, than pure sprinting abilities.

now fair enough Vos is no stranger to the velodrome either, in fact Ive seen her win lots of sprints in the velodrome,

but you can be beaten no matter how good you are if the rider you face off against basically uses the track & positioning on the track to their advantage, and it usually means if theyve taken that advantage, youre at a double disadvantage because you cant occupy the same bit of space.

Its not like on a road where it doesnt really matter which side of the finish you are as long as you lay down the watts you win, here its you need to be closest to the sprinter line, if your rival has forced you up the track away from it, you have to lay down even more watts to get past them.

Great description.

 

[yaco]

Four things to say.

1. Don't know where Koch has found this form as stated by Dani Rowe in the commentary.
2. SD Worx fell for the sunken cost fallacy. There is no way you allow Vas in that group of 4.
3. Visa was tactically naive in the last 20kms. Once PFP fell behind you keep her at 10 seconds behind, so that Koch is forced to burn energy riding at the front.
4. Brands fall. I feel the spectator deliberately touched the bike.

 

[Netserk]

the best just simply won

the time to play the numbers was before they got rid of vas

 

[jmdirt]

GREAT race FK! Comngrats!

 

[awavey]

Four things to say.

1. Don't know where Koch has found this form as stated by Dani Rowe in the commentary.
2. SD Worx fell for the sunken cost fallacy. There is no way you allow Vas in that group of 4.
3. Visa was tactically naive in the last 20kms. Once PFP fell behind you keep her at 10 seconds behind, so that Koch is forced to burn energy riding at the front.
4. Brands fall. I feel the spectator deliberately touched the bike.

5. we only got about 85mins of live coverage of the race


on 4 I dont know, they replayed it a few times it looked unintentional enough, albeit rather lacking in foresight on the spectators part certainly. abit like the cyclocross one this season where it looked again spectator had pushed the rider, but just was celebrating and not thinking.

 

[awavey]

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Replay of the Brand crash, she finished 10th in the end in the Wiebes group so I presume was ok

 

[pmcg76]

I really thought that Vos would win in a sprint handy enough, but boy was I wrong. Who would have expected FDJ to win Strade, Flanders and Roubaix with 3 different riders. Like others have said, Koch has really moved up a level this year. She was always a good rider, but she has moved top tier this season.Some bad crashes today,the one we saw early on looked quite bad.

I don't think this race needs to be longer, quite a few finished OTL as it was, so making it longer would likely eliminate even more. Womens cycling doesn't have the strength in depth yet.

 

[RedheadDane]

I haven't found an explanation for Kopecký's absence from the final start list. Hopefully it isn't due to a crash. It mean's the three siblings won't all be racing tomorrow.

Turns out, she was riding.
The Rockets posted a photo with all four Kopeckys.
Yeah, they "adopted" Lotte.

 

[ChewbaccaDefense]

which I think in a normal road finish sprint, she would have won, but I mentioned this in the mens race, the Roubaix sprint is very different to what they normally deal with at the end of a race, it does end up becoming alot more about track sprint tactics, than pure sprinting abilities.

now fair enough Vos is no stranger to the velodrome either, in fact Ive seen her win lots of sprints in the velodrome,

but you can be beaten no matter how good you are if the rider you face off against basically uses the track & positioning on the track to their advantage, and it usually means if theyve taken that advantage, youre at a double disadvantage because you cant occupy the same bit of space.

Its not like on a road where it doesnt really matter which side of the finish you are as long as you lay down the watts you win, here its you need to be closest to the sprinter line, if your rival has forced you up the track away from it, you have to lay down even more watts to get past them.

Yeah, I was bummed for Vos, but she had to go around the long way. Koch had the shorter distance to the line.

 

[ChewbaccaDefense]

Four things to say.

1. Don't know where Koch has found this form as stated by Dani Rowe in the commentary.
2. SD Worx fell for the sunken cost fallacy. There is no way you allow Vas in that group of 4.
3. Visa was tactically naive in the last 20kms. Once PFP fell behind you keep her at 10 seconds behind, so that Koch is forced to burn energy riding at the front.
4. Brands fall. I feel the spectator deliberately touched the bike.

Great observation. All of them, but particularly that one.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Turns out, she was riding.
The Rockets posted a photo with all four Kopeckys.
Yeah, they "adopted" Lotte.

Well they do all speak the same language. They also all finished race, unlike Riley Pickrell who can be added to the list of riders that haven't improved together with their significant others.

 

[Didinho]

Cat Ferguson had food poisoning.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Cat Ferguson had food poisoning.

Cat food can be hard to swallow, or so I've heard.

 

[RedheadDane]

Well they do all speak the same language. They also all finished race, unlike Riley Pickrell who can be added to the list of riders that haven't improved together with their significant others.

I'm gonna need to see that list.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I'm gonna need to see that list.

I can't make a definitive list, but Pickrell and Hinojosa are certainly on it right now.

 

[awavey]

Cat food can be hard to swallow, or so I've heard.

Ive kept wanting to do that Go Cat joke everytime she wins, but I realise no one else would get it. Go-Cat was/is a well know British brand of cat food

 

[Didinho]

Cat food can be hard to swallow, or so I've heard.

That’s why I also typed her surname. Cat had food poisoning would’ve had more reactions.

 

[Oldman]

Four things to say.

1. Don't know where Koch has found this form as stated by Dani Rowe in the commentary.
2. SD Worx fell for the sunken cost fallacy. There is no way you allow Vas in that group of 4.
3. Visa was tactically naive in the last 20kms. Once PFP fell behind you keep her at 10 seconds behind, so that Koch is forced to burn energy riding at the front.
4. Brands fall. I feel the spectator deliberately touched the bike.

Agree, 100% JVs tactics fell apart in the last 10km and someone needs to show PFP how to spin back to a wheel instead of yielding a 10 second gap and grinding her biggest gear to close it. Granted, after getting that close to the velodrome most riders can barely maintain any cadence. Vos did herself no favors on positioning for the sprint. Neither did Pogi who was also overgeared to respond to Wout.

 

[Andy262]

My main take from the race is still how JV were allowed to initiate that break with virtually no reaction from the rest of the leading group. If riders like Zoe Backstedt (and I know she’s young but this was her third or fourth go in this race) and Pfeiffer Georgi want to compete for the win they have to be better positioned and better able to respond to these moves. Don’t expect SD Worx or anyone else to drag it back because they won’t.

 

[Didinho]

My main take from the race is still how JV were allowed to initiate that break with virtually no reaction from the rest of the leading group. If people like Zoe Backstedt (and I know she’s young but this was her third go in this race) want to compete for the win they have to be better positioned and better able to respond to these moves. Don’t expect SD Worx or anyone else to drag it back because they won’t.

Zoe had a slow puncture on 2nd sector but didn’t notice it immediately so she thought she had bad legs untill sector 4. And also crashed on a cobbled corner afterwards. Still ended up close to top 10 I think. She’ll be back to win this one day.

 

[HashRouge]

Could they not start the women's race a little bit later (or the men's a bit earlier) to allow for more coverage? I really like having them on the same day as it means I can watch both without sacrificing the whole weekend, but only 50km of coverage seems ridiculous really.

 

[Links2003]

Absolutely brilliant: huge congratulations to Franziska Koch. She already showed last year that she’s a force to be reckoned with. The team change gave her a further boost, and she’s been in great form all spring. Today she was able to ride for herself and pulled it off brilliantly. She spotted the Visma attack and rode superbly afterwards. And in the velodrome, too, she rode brilliantly – the line she took was spot on.
SD Works, phew, I don’t think anyone understood their tactics. If you have all your riders in the second group and just one rider at the front with the Visma captains – then it’s a bold move to trust that it will work. Especially as there was no other team at the back where you could realistically hope they’d close the gap.
And Visma – well, they may have underestimated Koch a bit, but above all they were too keen on securing the win with Vos. Her rival knew that too.

 

[awavey]

Zoe had a slow puncture on 2nd sector but didn’t notice it immediately so she thought she had bad legs untill sector 4. And also crashed on a cobbled corner afterwards. Still ended up close to top 10 I think. She’ll be back to win this one day.

Which is fair enough but the break happend just after sector 11 i think, why werent any of them, and yes I know that can apply to most of the field at that point, awake to that race winning move ?

How did that group of 4 put 1min into them so quickly, and it never really came back down by attempts from the peloton to close it, when it didnt appear on the face of it to be a massive display of power or acceleration.

 

[woodburn]

IDK if it would have matter but Visma would have been better off having Prevost hang off the back and make Koch lead the entire last four kms. Instead she got a free ride the last two 2ks.

 

[theyoungest]

The Visma women made pretty much the same mistake as the Visma men did last year in Dwars door Vlaanderen: they didn't ride for a win with the team, they rode for a win with Marianne Vos. Like the men did for Wout, and ended up leading out Powless. In both cases it's very understandable, but in both cases I have to say that it was quite obvious long before the finish line that this tactic was too risky. As it proved to be.

On a day that the cycling gods finally gave Van Aert his due, they were especially cruel to Marianne Vos. I hope they make it right, because this is very wrong, dear cycling gods.