Mark Cavendish crossed the finish line in 30th place at Paris-Roubaix. The Dimension Data rider, who was present at the start of this race only for the second time of his career, had hoped to help Edvald Boasson Hagen to win the race. The Norwegian battled it out with the race favourites Tom Boonen (Etixx–Quick-Step), Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Ian Stannard (Sky), but finished fifth when Mathew Hayman (Orica-GreenEDGE) surprised them all.

The Bristish rider told reporters about his performance. "I wasn’t on early duty and we missed a group of 20, so I did the biggest watts of the race to get over to that. 1400 watts to get over to that. Two big sprints, and I thought, ‘I’m going to pay for this later.’ But we had to be represented in that move", Cavendish told Cycling Weekly. He added that he has "sore balls" but wanted to do more on cobbles.

"It’s a hard race. It’s my second time, the first time I finished it, and I wish I could’ve done more for Edvald, but I was on the wrong side of the crash when the race split. The road was blocked."

After watching the final, he praised Boasson Hagen's performance. "I’m super happy for Edvald. He did really well. That’s our best result in the Classics. I knew that he’d be up there. He was motivated. There’s some of the biggest riders in this race, so to be slugging it out with them."