Cobblestone roads of France no match for Alison Jackson, rising Canadian cycling star

A few kilometres from the finish of one of the toughest bicycle races in the world, Canadian Alison Jackson looked back to see a chasing group only seconds behind. Almost close enough to touch.

The pursuers included top stars in the sport and had been closing ground quickly. It was decision time. Ease up and take the chance contesting a more crowded finish. Or go hard to stay away and risk blowing up – but maybe win it all.

Ms. Jackson and her fellow breakaway companions were survivors of a small group that had been out front about 110 kilometres of the 145-km race. They’d been bashed and bruised racing over 30 km of cobblestoned roads through northern France. But so had their pursuers. Nobody could have much left in the tank.

The leaders went for it and still had a gap as they approached the finish line of Paris-Roubaix Femmes.

“I just wanted to ride with full heart,” Ms. Jackson said a few days later from her European base in Girona, Spain. “Just had to be my own best cheerleader.”

The gambit paid off. She won a decisive sprint finish Saturday to claim the biggest victory of her career, and one of the biggest in Canadian pro cycling. She is the only North American to have won either the men’s version of the race, which dates to 1896, or the women’s, which had its third edition last weekend.

“In terms of her stature in the sport, it’s huge,” veteran cycling commentator Anthony McCrossan, who calls races for ASO, which owns the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix and other marquee events, said in an interview.

“In terms of Canadian cycling I think it’s a pivotal point. Because I think it’s a massively inspiring moment for any Canadian girl who’s sitting there watching this and thinking, ‘I want to be Alison Jackson now, I want to ride a bike.’”

Paris-Roubaix is often called the Hell of the North. The nickname comes from the desolate landscape after the First World War, as racers rode through bomb-blasted former battlefields. But it could as easily apply to the rigours of the race itself.

“There’s no other race on the calendar like it,” said Ms. Jackson, 34, who grew up on a bison farm near Vermilion, Alta.

“These streets that we’re riding on, these cobbled streets, are so rough. It’s ridiculous that anyone would want to ride on these. Well, no one wants to ride on these, but we race on these because of the long history of the race.”

The route deliberately zigs and zags to take in stretches of cobbles dating, in some cases, to Napoleonic roads. These cobbled bits are slippery, bone-jarring and treacherous. Equipment failure is common, as are hard crashes and unpredictable moments.

Former pro and Roubaix winner Sean Kelly called it “a horrible race to ride but the most beautiful one to win.” Five-time Tour de France champion Bernard Hinault won there, but vowed never to go back.

Women didn’t get their own edition of Paris-Roubaix until 2021, disproving naysayers who claimed they weren’t up to the punishment. Their course has lengthened each year and last weekend was about 55 per cent the distance the men covered in their own race, a day later. But Mr. McCrossan dismissed any notion that the women had an easy ride.

“When you look at the power [output] of women riders and you look at their peak performance, it’s not far off the men,” the commentator said. “The intensity is certainly there and the athletic ability is certainly there.”

For fans, Roubaix is one of the most cherished spectacles in racing. It’s the toughest of tough events, which requires the right mixture of strength, tactics and luck.

To some extent riders can make their own luck. Ms. Jackson, who rides for the professional team EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, said that part of her logic in getting into the small breakaway of riders was to stay ahead of crashes and other trouble.

Still, the odds were always against her.

Long breakaways in pro cycling are usually made up of people not seen as threats to win. More often, a breakaway is a way to get the sponsor’s jersey on television, or to position a rider ahead who can offer support later to a team leader. They are generally caught, often in the final kilometres.

Fans love them anyway, because of the grit riders show. And sometimes, once in a while, they go all the way. Surprise winners are crowned. Legends are written.

With less than 500 metres left to race last Saturday, inside the velodrome that contains the finish line, the racer beside Ms. Jackson went down hard. She tumbled to her left, away from the Canadian, who stayed upright and launched her sprint seconds later. No one could answer her power to the line.

Ms. Jackson, with a stunned look on her face, had the strength to raise her arms in victory as she won by a bike-length. Moments later she hefted above her head the 12-kilogram cobblestone traditionally given to the race winner.

“A lot of times you dream about winning, but a lot of times the dream just stays as a dream,” she said. “To make it come true, on that day and in that velodrome, at such an iconic race, yeah, it’s just a really big moment for me.”

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