ROUBAIX, France, 10 April 2006 — Switzerland’s Fabian Cancelara won the Paris-Roubaix classic yesterday racing home ahead of Belgians Leif Hoste and Peter van Petegem who were then disqualified.
World champion Tom Boonen, was promoted from fifth to second place after Hoste, van Petegem and Russian Vladimir Goessev were disqualified for riding through a railway crossing when the barriers were down 10 km from the finish. Italian Alessandro Ballan was given third place. Boonen said he had been puzzled by the level crossing incident.
“The organizers should have stopped the guys at the level crossing,” the leader of the ProTour standings told reporters. “It was kind of odd to sit there watching a train ride past, birds fly and you’re 10 kilometers from the finish of Paris-Roubaix.” Cancelara was the first Swiss in 83 years to win the race.
The 25-year-old made his first impression in 2004 when he finished fourth in the Queen of classics before winning the Tour de France prologue. A time-trial specialist, the CSC team leader broke away on the fifth of 27 cobbled sectors, to secure his biggest victory and become only the second Swiss winner after Henri Suter in 1923.
Since Suter’s victory, the race had almost become Belgian property with 51 victories in 104 editions and everybody at the start of the 259-km classic in Compiegne thought Belgium would be crowned again thanks to last year’s winner Boonen.
The Quick Step team leader, a brilliant winner in the Tour of Flanders a week ago, was aiming for the unprecedented feat of winning both races twice in succession.
But he was unable to react when Cancelara broke from a group of eight 17 km from the finish on the notorious Carrefour de l’Arbre cobbled sector.
“When Fabian and Goessev attacked I was waiting to jump across but I couldn’t,” Boonen said. “That’s when I lost my speed. That’s the moment when I cracked.
