A little over six kilometres from home, Luca Paolini looked around at the ghastly crew left aboard the winning break at Gent-Wevelgem and saw only glazed and weary eyes, a day of storm-buffeted racing around West Flanders etched in their faces.
Reckoning their limbs to be as heavy as his own, the Katusha man launched a speculative attack. When he turned around, Paolini realised that he had opened a small gap that his five erstwhile companions would struggle to close, given that they had long since abandoned the idea of rowing in the same direction.
“I looked at everyone in the face, and I saw we were all finished – alla frutta, as we say in Italian,” Paolini said. “I knew that I wasn’t going to be the quickest in a sprint because I’m not really explosive anymore, so I made a sort of half attack to see who’d react. Once I found myself in front I made a more violent, seated attack, and that allowed me to get the gap that I held to finish. But I can assure you that those were the longest five or six kilometres: it seemed they’d never finish.”
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By the time he entered the final kilometre, Paolini was aware that only mishap could deny him the biggest victory of his career and the second cobbled classic of an unexpected Indian summer that caught fire with his surprise win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in 2013. At 38 years of age, the bearded Paolini was the oldest rider in the winning move on Sunday and, as it turned out, the canniest. Little wonder that he pointed at his head and chest as he freewheeled across the line 11 seconds clear of Niki Terpstra (Etixx-QuickStep) and Geraint Thomas (Sky).
“I made the same gesture when I took the maglia rosa at the Giro d’Italia two years ago, because I think that when you win a race like that, you need head and heart as much as legs,” he explained.
Although wind and rain had been forecast all week, nobody quite anticipated just how difficult this edition of Gent-Wevelgem would prove to be, and through the crosswinds of the opening 150 kilometres, simply staying upright proved a challenge. Paolini fell twice, first in the crash that eliminated Mark Cavendish and then ahead of the second ascent of the Kemmelberg, but he kept his composure on each occasion.
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