The Velo Club (VC) Roubaix will not be organising the under-23 version of Paris-Roubaix next year, the club’s president Jean-Charles Cannone told La Voix du Nord. The cost of policing the event has gone up five-fold this year and made it far too expensive for the club to organise and forced the decision to cancel.
"The cost for the police to accompany the race just went up from 2.4 euros to 12 euros per hour,” Cannone explained. “Unbelievable! We would have needed 20,000 euros."
The money saved by the VC Roubaix not organising the race will instead be used to buy equipment for the club's youth members.
The race has traditionally been held on the last weekend in May or the first weekend in June, when the weather is generally better than at the senior version of the race in April. The distance covered was approximately 180km, compared with the 250-260km of the senior race.
The race began in 1967 as an amateur version and has had a number of distinguished winners, including Marc Madiot (1979), Stephen Roche (1980), Thor Hushovd (1998) and Yaroslav Popovych (2001).
The last two editons of the race have been won by Taylor Phinney of Trek-Livestrong who has now signed for the BMC Racing team and may well have his first senior attempt at the Enfer du Nord this April. The 2008 edition was won by Coen Vermeltfoort, who will make the step up from the Rabobank Continental team to the ProTeam this year; current Vacansoleil rider Johnny Hoogerland was second in 2005.