Movistar come out of "Unreal Roubaix" Stage relatively unscathed

An extraordinary performance from Movistar Team riders saw most of them survive the 15 cobbles sectors containing 21 km of cobbles to Roubaix

A crash for José Joaquín Rojas after 9km into the race saw him abandon along with Richie Porte, luckily the serious blow to his left shoulder didn't containing any fractures.

Erviti, Amador, Bennati and Soler paced Nairo Quintana back to the main bunch after some difficulties after sector 12.

Valverde stayed calm making up a deficit of nearly one minute after a crash with Mikel Landa with 32km to go.

With many bruises and cuts all over his body, Valverde finished only 7 secs behind the GC favourites, 27s behind winner John Degenkolb.

Valverde now sits in 5th place overall 1m 31s behind Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) and just 48″ behind Geraint Thomas (SKY).

Mikel Landa held onto a top ten placing on GC (10th place at 1m 42s), while Nairo Quintana remains 2 m 50s behind and stayed upright for the whole stage.

Mikel Landa said afterwards: “I’m happy, because we got through a very difficult situation. I was drinking some water on an asphalt stretch between cobblestone sectors and rode over a pothole or drain cover. My team-mates were impressive after my accident, and not only pushing there for me but also during the whole stage: taking care of us three, solving that problem – I can’t credit them enough for their incredile job. Let’s hope it’s just scratches, so I can get back to 100% soon. I don’t really know if I’m at 100% right now; the right shoulder hurts a bit, but I think it should be nothing serious.”

Alejandro Valverde: “It’s been an unreal stage. A really, really hard effort, which we got through way better than expected. After so many tough moments, the team was able to also get Mikel into our group, and that makes me so happy, because they’ve shown how great they can be. We made it through, and that’s already success. My legs feel good at the moment, and our terrain to really shine starts on Tuesday.”

Nairo Quintana: “We got through a very difficult stage for us, and rode really focused, the entire team. It was a day when you needed to have very good physical condition and remain well positioned, always alert. I had some sort of problem at the one of the early sectors and we had to go on the pursuit, but thanks to my team-mates, I could bridge back. After that, I always remained near the front, doing things well, in a very diffcult terrain for us against such talented specialists. I hope to make this gap up in the mountains, because my legs feel great at the moment.”