{"id":603398,"date":"2026-04-13T04:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603398\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T04:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T04:48:09","slug":"expensive-mistake-costs-lotte-kopecky-shot-at-paris-roubaix-femmes-podium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603398\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Expensive mistake’ costs Lotte Kopecky shot at Paris-Roubaix Femmes podium"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lotte Kopecky<\/a> saw her chances of further Paris-Roubaix Femmes<\/a> success drift down the cobbles of northern France after a momentary loss of position on one of the race’s key pav\u00e9 sectors.<\/p>\n

The SD Worx-Protime rider ultimately crossed the line fourth, bettering Megan Jastrab (UAE Team ADQ) in a sprint for the minor places, but it’ll be little consolation to the two-time road world champion and 2024 winner of the Hell of the North.<\/p>\n

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Kopecky took several minutes to compose herself after the race before facing the media’s questions, clearly disappointed by how the afternoon’s events panned out for her and her teammates.<\/p>\n

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“I was too far [back] on Mons-en-P\u00e9v\u00e8le,” Kopecky began, before adding that at first, all hope wasn’t lost when a group of four went away. “We had Blanka [Vas] in it, so actually it was good.”<\/p>\n

She had attempted to keep the time gap to the lead group in check but when Vas was dropped \u2013 leaving just Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez), Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) out front \u2013 the team’s race hopes hung by a thread.<\/p>\n

“We tried to keep the pressure on so the gap wouldn’t be too big and Visma-Lease a Bike couldn’t play any games, but the moment Blanka got dropped, we were not in a good situation anymore,” Kopecky confessed.<\/p>\n

Femke Markus and Lorena Wiebes attempted to bring Kopecky back into the fray, but the Belgian star soon had to close the one-minute split alongside Jastrab, and the pendulum only swung further in favour of the trio out in front.<\/p>\n

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Kopecky didn’t make any excuses for the missed opportunity of adding another Paris-Roubaix title to her palmar\u00e8s, though.<\/p>\n

“My legs were good,” she confirmed. “It’s my own fault. I need to not be in 15th or 20th position. I need to be in the first five.<\/p>\n

“The group stayed really big, and nothing really happened, so I was quite relaxed. Then I saw those four, and I knew immediately that we probably wouldn’t see them back.”<\/p>\n

Knowing all too well what it takes to win this race, Kopecky ended with a blunt assessment of her performance<\/a>, stating: “I made a lot of sectors where I had to be, just this one I was not, and it was an expensive mistake.”<\/p>\n

Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We’ll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lotte Kopecky saw her chances of further Paris-Roubaix Femmes success drift down the cobbles of northern France after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-603398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}