Lizzie Deignan makes historical past by successful first ladies’s Paris Roubaix race

The WorldTeam Trek–Segafredo rider got here house one minute and 17 seconds forward of Dutchwoman Marianne Vos; Lizzie Deignan took a breakaway win within the first ladies’s Paris Roubaix race

Lizzie Deignan claimed victory within the first ladies’s Paris Roubaix race

Britain’s Lizzie Deignan rode to a landmark victory within the inaugural Paris Roubaix Femmes as rain, mud and crashes made it a memorable debut for the world’s finest feminine riders over the notorious cobbled course on Saturday.

The previous world champion produced a dominant experience over the 115.6km course and held off a robust late surge by Dutch nice Marianne Vos to win by one minute and 17 seconds.

After three circuits round Denain, Trek Segafredo rider Deignan established a small lead over the pack simply earlier than the primary of 17 cobbled sections.

With riders struggling to organise a concerted chase, lots of them slithering over on the greasy cobbles, former world champion Deignan powered right into a commanding lead.

With 30km remaining the Trek-Segafredo rider held a lead of two minutes 30 seconds over a bunch together with Dutch nice Marianne Vos (Jumbo Visma), teammate Audrey Cordon-Ragot and Germany’s Lisa Brennauer (Ceratizit-WNT).

Deignan, dealing with the bone-shaking “pave” cobblestones with aplomb, maintained her benefit as a number of fancied riders together with European champion Ellen van Dijk crashed closely.

Vos lastly put the hammer all the way down to attempt to catch Deignan, slicing into the lead as she powered via the Carrefour de L’Arbre cobbled part.

Vos closed the hole to 1:18 as Deignan started the ultimate 10km, however Deignan proved unshakeable out entrance because the famed Roubaix velodrome end approached.

Deignan was up to now forward that the finale contained in the Roubaix velodrome resembled a lap of honour because the Yorkshire rider wrote her title into the biking historical past books.

Vos completed greater than a minute behind, with Deignan’s teammate Elisa Longo Borghini in third place.

Organisers ASO, who additionally personal the Tour de France, added a ladies’s model of the 125-year-old Paris Roubaix final 12 months, however the COVID-19 pandemic meant they needed to wait one other 12 months to experience the so-called Hell of the North.

The debut for the Paris Roubaix Femmes race and for a ladies’s Tour de France subsequent 12 months are seen as steps ahead within the lengthy battle for gender equality in skilled biking, though there stays an extended solution to go.

Whereas Sunday’s males’s race over an extended distance boasts a complete prize pot of 91,000 euros (£71,892), the ladies’s race has solely 7,505 euros (£6,423) with Deignan receiving 1,535 euros (£1,313) – about 1/twentieth of what the winner of the boys’s race will take house.