Team Sky has made a late change to its line-up for Paris-Roubaix, adding sprinter Elia Viviani to its eight-rider squad after his second place behind Marcel Kittel at Wednesday's Scheldeprijs race.
Luke Rowe and Ian Stannard will lead Team Sky on the French pave, with Jon Dibben, Owain Doull, Christian Knees, Gianni Moscon, Lukas Wisniowski completing the line-up. The team is a mix of youth and experience. Knees is the veteran of the squad at 36, while Moscon is only 22. Doull and Dibben are only 23 and, along with Wisniowski, are riding Paris-Roubaix for the first time in their professional careers.
Team Sky won Milan-San Remo with Michal Kwiatkowski but has so far made little impact in the cobbled Classics. Luke Rowe's third place at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne is their best result so far in their cobbled campaign. Stannard has been strong but has yet to leave his mark. However he finished third in last year's Paris-Roubaix behind Matt Hayman and Tom Boonen and has the pedigree to do another great ride on the French cobbles. Stannard finished second in the junior version of Paris-Roubaix back in 2004, behind teammate Geraint Thomas. Sunday will be his eighth ride at Paris-Roubaix.
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Rowe is recovering from his high-speed crash at the Tour of Flanders, when Sep Vanmarcke appeared to get a wheel stuck in the gap in the concrete road surface.
"I kind of lost most of my skin down most of my right-hand side, but in general when you crash that fast on a bad surface like that it could have been a lot worse," Rowe told Cyclingnews at the start of Scheldeprijs.
"You see Sep's [Vanmarcke] got a broken finger, and that's put him out of Roubaix. While you can't say that it's lucky, I think that I've come off relatively well. I'm just trying to forget about it. It's Paris-Roubaix. Any other race, you'd say I'll have a few days off and let the body heal but it's Roubaix and nothing is going to stop me performing to the best of my ability there.
Two recon rides
— Team Sky
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