Sebastien Turgot gives Colnago a place on the Paris-Roubaix podium

Sebastien Turgot (Team Europcar) became the first Frenchman to fin­ish on the Paris-Roubaix podium since 1997 and showed of the qual­i­ties of his Colnago Prestige bike on the pave with a deter­mined sec­ond place in Paris-Roubaix.

Turgot tried a lone attack before even­tual win­ner Tom Boonen took off and the Frenchman still had the legs to fight his way back into con­tention in the Roubaix velo­drome. He timed his sprint to per­fec­tion, com­ing over the top of his rivals to beat Alessandro Ballan by a just a cou­ple of mil­lime­tres in the sprint.

It was a great day for Team Europcar, with David Veilleux also in the long break­away that shaped much of the race and sur­vived the ter­ri­ble Forest of Arenberg sec­tor. When the race came back together, Turgot was there and rode an intel­li­gent race, let­ting his spe­cial Colnago Prestige bike dom­i­nate the cob­bles of north­ern France.

The Colnago Prestige frame is sim­i­lar to those used by cyclo-cross stars Sven Nys and cur­rent world cham­pion Niels Albert. It has excel­lent wheel clear­ance and can­tilever brakes but is lighter thanks to a spe­cial refined car­bon fibre design. The leg­endary Colnago C40 dom­i­nated the pave in the past; now the Colnago Prestige has proved again that it is per­fect for the pave.

“I never thought I’d pull of a result like that but my legs felt good,” Turgot said after proudly climb­ing onto the podium with Boonen and Ballan.

“I tried with 60km to go, to see how I was, and realised I could do some­thing. After that I rode intel­li­gently and made sure I was in the right posi­tion on the pave sec­tors.  When we were two or three kilo­me­tres from the fin­ish and close to catch­ing the trio, I told myself to give it every­thing and then try in the sprint. My rim was touch­ing the brakes but I told myself not to think about it and go all out to the line. It’s great to fin­ish on the podium behind Tom Boonen. It pays me and the Europcar team back for all the sac­ri­fices and hard work we’ve done.”

Team Europcar man­ager Jean-Rene Bernadeau described Turgot’s per­for­mance as historic.

“This is a huge result for Sebastien and the team. He’s got a real love for the clas­sics and this result pays him and the team back for all the work we’ve done. There are no secrets to our success.”