ON the wheels of a lucky-number-seventh place in the classic Milan-San Remo road race, Inverell son Heinrich Haussler (IAM Cycling) rumbled to an outstanding sixth place in the monster one-day Paris-Roubaix on April 10.
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The 120-year-old race is best known as the Hell of the North for its grinding cobbled sections, rattling cyclists to the marrow.
Haussler seemed only too happy to take on the discomfort over the 5hours, 52 minutes and 53seconds it took to power the 257.5 kilometres, 53kms of which are cobbled.
Haussler, who has been battling illness, felt elated by the result, coming so close to the top from a field of nearly 200 competitors, with only 119 finishing.
I didn’t have the power that I normally would have liked.
- Heinrich Haussler
“In (the Tour of Flanders) I got really sick and then you know, I had to pull out, and also this week, I’ve done hardly any training so that’s why also my energy and also the power in the last 30ks.
“I didn’t have the power that I normally would have liked, so I’m very happy with the top ten and the sixth place,” he said in a post-race interview with IAM.
His tenacity kept him a minute behind the first bunch over the line, led by fellow-Australian and Orica-GreenEDGE rider Michael Hayman who has climbed the cobbled Paris-Roubaix ranks from 10th pace in 2011 and 8th in 2012 to this year’s win.
Haussler commended his team for the support.
“The team has done a magnificent job. We ended up at the front with Saramotins narrowly avoiding a collective fall,” he said in his IAM statement.
“But today, I had legs of fire.
“Although I am not able to stay with the leading group in the final, I did a lot of confidence for the rest of the season after my seventh place in Milan-San Remo.”
