Fabian Cancellara is no stranger to a Paris-Roubaix team presentation but he discovered an unwelcome change as he arrived in Compiègne on Saturday for his final one.
The traditional set-up, whereby riders come into the main square, make their way through a fan and sponsor village before getting up on stage and going away with a goody bag, has been revamped, and the 35-year-old cut a confused figure as he walked straight through the media zone – now the first port of call – without stopping.
When he did get his bearings he returned to answer a few questions and seemed disappointed to discover that time was marching on, with no regard for the importance of his final rituals.
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“I spoke to one of our riders, Marco Coledan – it’s his first Paris-Roubaix – and I said ‘let’s go to the presentation, let’s do the loop with all the fans and the sponsors’. But then we came in and you don’t do the loop anymore with all the small gifts – that’s what I explained he would see today,” Cancellara said.
“This has changed, everything is changing,” he mused, shortly before taking to the stage alongside a 23-year-old Jasper Stuyven gleefully brandishing a selfie stick.
Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) is very much the spearhead of that new generation, and the world champion indulged the big kid inside him when he was given a go with the promotional gun – used by podium girls to launch t-shirts into the air for the crowd.
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