‘Expensive mistake’ costs Lotte Kopecky shot at Paris-Roubaix Femmes podium

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.

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“I was too far [back] on Mons-en-Pévèle,” Kopecky began, before adding that at first, all hope wasn’t lost. “We had Blanka [Vas] in it, so actually it was good.”

She had attempted to keep the time gap to the lead group down, but when Vas was dropped, the team’s race hopes hung by a thread.

“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.

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.

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Kopecky didn’t make any excuses for the missed opportunity of adding another Paris-Roubaix title to her palmarès, though.

“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.

“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.”