Lotte Kopecky: Paris-Roubaix Femmes went ‘exactly as planned’

In the aftermath of her Paris-Roubaix Femmes victory, Lotte Kopecky praised her SD Worx teammates and said they had helped ensure she kept a calm and level head going into the cobbled Monument. 

The Belgian narrowly missed out on another Tour of Flanders victory last weekend which she explained only added extra determination to succeed this time out. 

Kopecky told the media post-race that the build up to Roubaix had been mixed with both nerves and excitement. She said that once the race started, that changed to confidence in her own ability as she could feel the faith that her teammates had in her and credited them for their part in the win. 

"I tried to stay as calm as possible today," she said. "After Sunday, the feeling was not what I wanted it to be but luckily I have really good friends, and a really good team behind me who really tried to keep me calm and gave me confidence. 

"They helped me try to spend these last few days with not too many worries…This morning of course, I was nervous but I was relaxed. I could really feel the confidence they had in me and I tried to take that good feeling with me into the race."

Kopecky was full of energy throughout the Monument and was regularly on the attack as each cobbled sector of the course arrived. In the end it came down to a dramatic sprint on the velodrome in which she got the better of Lidl-Trek’s Elisa Balsamo and Pfeiffer Georgi (dsm–firmenich PostNL). 

When asked whether her initial pre-race plan had worked, Kopecky said that everything had gone exactly as she expected, both on a personal level and for her team as a group. 

"It was exactly as we planned," she said. "We wanted to try to stay out of trouble in the first 60 kilometres and be right in front in the first three sectors… Before the first sector that I attacked on, I had Elena Cecchini who tried to position me and I knew I wanted to go there and see what happened."

The Dutch team, she explained, had the added bonus of having their star sprinter, Lorena Wiebes, in the chasing pack for if the race had come back together on the run in to the finish. 

"Of course going ahead with Marianne was not ideal for me," Kopecky said. "When I was with Marianne, I was just thinking that we still had the card to play with Lorena [Wiebes]. Today I really wanted to win myself but I was also really motivated that if there was a situation where we needed to go for it for Lorena, I was 110% committed to that."

As the lead group tore into the velodrome, the crowd erupted with delight at the sight of the world champion firmly in contention for the win. As well as her road world title, Kopecky holds multiple world titles on the track which led to some assuming she held the upper hand. 

Kopecky said that her track background hadn’t crossed her mind as she got ready to launch her sprint for the line. 

"Pfeiffer and Marianne also have track backgrounds," she said. "We all knew what we were doing. It's an advantage but I didn't think about it as they had this advantage too. It didn't really change anything for me, no."

"Before we came on the track it was already a big fight to try and get in position," she added. "Of course I knew that Marianne [Vos] and Elisa [Balsamo] would try to fight against each other and on the other side of the track there was a headwind. 

"They had to start the sprint pretty early so I tried to stay calm and start sprinting at the right moment. That was a long sprint but that's to my advantage and I did what I needed to do."