The standard response from a rider who is asked what they think about a rival or another team’s tactics is for them to insist that they only focus on themselves and their own race. In light of their recent dominance, it was clear that most of the women’s peloton were getting sick and tired of being asked about SD Worx. In a press conference on Friday afternoon, Elisa Longo Borghini literally rolled her eyes at a question about the Dutch team.
It’s unlikely that other teams and riders are so blinkered to what their competitors are up to, but one who certainly stuck to her own plan was Alison Jackson. The Canadian stated her intention to get into an early break to preempt the favorite’s moves, which is exactly what she did, and which put her in the position to take her win.
“In Paris-Roubaix, to ride in the break that early – if you watch the men’s history, they can go really far. I just wanted to get ahead of Lotte Kopecky basically before some of these sectors. It’s always a gamble,” she said post-race.
Jackson’s commitment to taking the race by the horns won her a cobblestone trophy and a host of new fans on Saturday. The archetypal Roubaix winner in that she never gave up, her deep desire to win the race evident in every labored pedal stroke she took in those final meters of the race, using her whole body to put out every last watt she had left.
She is also an entirely atypical Roubaix winner in that her first move after stopping was to break out into a dance – something that her social media followers were already expecting – wore a bright pink bucket hat on the podium as she gestured animatedly, and pretended to interview her cobblestone trophy during the press conference.
“I grew up on a farm in rural Alberta and one of the things I had to do as a kid was to go to the field and pick rocks by hand and put them in the truck,” Jackson said.
“Lo and behold I’m picking another rock today. My nephews, they’ll go into the backfield and look for rocks to pick and have their own rock collection or just make sure that they’re out of the field so that the farmers don’t run into trouble. I think that they will really love and appreciate this trophy.”
In what was almost certainly the first instance of the name ‘TikTok’ being uttered in a Paris-Roubaix press conference, Jackson was asked whether the trophy would feature in one of her signature dance videos.
“Well, this little rock here, hopefully we can teach him some dance moves,” she joked. “I’m going to do a few more push-ups to include it in some dances. But I think that we’re just going to fully enjoy the win and then we’ll see what comes up after that.”
Despite all the dancing and joking, though, Jackson is a killer on the road. The 34-year-old set her sights on a Roubaix win from the very first edition and knew exactly how she was going to get ahead on Saturday. She was also one of the main drivers of the breakaway – alongside Marta Lach of Ceratizit-WNT– particularly in the final kilometers as the chasing group of favorites closed in.
“I’d rather get my heart out fully and then end up mid pack in that group or shy of the win than sit in and allow the group to catch us and still have minimal results. It’s just the gamble of what sport is,” she said.
It is exactly the kind of attitude that appeared to be missing from the peloton in recent months as chase after chase fell apart behind solo SD Worx riders. Racing conservatively is not the Roubaix way, and Jackson knew it.
If that’s not enough grit for you, the Canadian was also racing with an unhealed wound on her knee that she sustained at Ronde van Drenthe a month ago, and which required stitches at the time.
“That’s why I wear knee warmers while racing. I just have a patch and I have to keep it clean because it’s not totally healed yet,” she explained. “But bikers do have to be tough. Crashing is a part of it, but we learn to be resilient, and you’ve got to keep going.”
And keep going she did, riding herself into cycling history in the process.
0 Commentaires