Upon finishing Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, BMC’s Taylor Phinney said that he has a new appreciation for how difficult it is just to finish such a tough event. The American finished 49th, just over 14 minutes behind the day’s winner, Mathew Hayman (Orica-GreenEdge), but he said finishing the race was one more building block in his road to recovery.
“I definitely have more of an appreciation for how hard it is just to finish this race,” Phinney said at the finish line in the velodrome.
Phinney hasn’t raced Paris-Roubaix since 2014, after which he was involved in a career-threatening crash that injured his leg and took him out of competition for over a year. He also wasn’t a sure start for this year’s event but was added to the BMC roster because of his strong performances at Gent-Wevelgem and Tour of Flanders.
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He compared Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix performance to the one he did two years ago and then gave some insight into how he sees himself developing over the next 12 months.
“I was able to handle the positioning better in the first half of this race than I was a couple of years ago, and also able to fight and take some risks, which was something I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do or not. I didn’t know if I’d be scared or skittish so, yeah, it feels like a positive building day as I go forward.
“These races are pretty wild, all the Classics were really hard this year from the start.”
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