Pfeiffer Georgi takes bittersweet 8th for Team DSM at epic edition of Paris – Roubaix Femmes

The Hell of the North awaited the women’s peloton this afternoon as they took on Paris-Roubaix, tackling 145 kilometres of challenging terrain which included 17 bone shaking sectors of cobbles. Team DSM arrived arrived at the start filled with confidence after a good classics campaign so far, and looked to leave their mark on the race.

With the peloton rolling out of Denain it was a fast and attacking start, with the team covering the moves well before Daniek Hengeveld made it into a dangerous 18 rider break which built up a maximum lead of five minutes and 45 seconds before they hit the first sector of cobbles with 85 kilometres to go. Riding with confidence, Hengeveld came to the front of the break on the next sector and upped the pace, with no one initially willing to follow her. Not looking back, she continued to stamp on the pedals and heading into the last 50 kilometres she held onto a three minute and 45 second gap over the peloton, from where the attacks started. The rest of the original breakaway kept working well together though and eventually made contact with Hengeveld at 45 kilometres to go, while in the meantime Pfeiffer Georgi and Franziska Koch had made it into an elite chasing group from the peloton.

While Georgi and Koch’s group was eating into the gap held by Hengeveld’s breakaway, a big crash saw all but one of that chase group make it through on one of the many cobbled sections. Georgi and Koch managed to remount and fought their way back in various groups; ultimately rejoining together at around 20 kilometres to go. However, it severely stunted the chase and swung the balance back in the favour of the breakaway, which by this point had then split with Hengeveld fighting hard to hold on.

Approaching the last section of cobbles Hengeveld, who was dropped as the breakaway split once more, did one last big pull with Georgi in tow, reducing the gap down to around ten seconds from 40. Yet, things then once again slowed and a few attacks disrupted the chase, while the breakaway began working together well again. Ultimately, six riders from the original break would fight it out for the win in the velodrome, while Georgi fought all the way to the line and produced a very strong sprint from the chasing bunch to take an eighth place finish in Roubaix.

“I think the team did everything we could,” expressed Georgi at the finish. “From the beginning we had Daniek in the break and then had Maeve and Charlotte doing some really good positioning work going into the first sectors – we were exactly where we needed to be. I felt really good personally but then we had a big crash and that kind of disrupted the chase a bit. I feel like there was a lot more possible today but that’s the way it played out in the end so for now I’m a bit disappointed to be honest.”

Team DSM coach Kelvin Dekker added: “Our plan worked out pretty much as we had hoped. We had Daniek in the early break which was our goal. The situation was good with a nice group and Daniek riding strongly there. She went on the attack in the hope of making the group smaller and some other riders would join her but in the end she was alone and a smaller group from behind never came, which in the end cost her some energy for the final. Franzi and Pfeiffer were set up perfectly in the back I would say, the team work was amazing again. Then the whole group they were in crashed out basically. It’s something that defined the race, which is a shame. They both came out of it okay but it took maybe around 30 or 40 extra seconds which in the end saw them come up short in the final. We were very close, we had Daniek to close the gap and she helped bring it down from 40 to ten seconds but then once she was done it stalled and then went back out. It’s of course then a bit of a bittersweet feeling that Pfeiffer could come second in the chase group in the sprint right behind Kopecky and confirm she was super strong today. For the whole classics period and today too we’ve been strong as a team so it’s a shame to be able to miss out on the chance to go for the win or podium even, especially being so close, but we can be incredibly proud of the whole classics period and I hope that will sink in for everyone in the next couple of days, no matter how disappointed the riders might feel right now.”