Boonen powers to third Paris-Roubaix victory

(CNN) -- Belgian Tom Boonen has won his third Paris-Roubaix cobbled classic, and his second in succession, with a thrilling victory marred by a motorcycle crash that left 10 people injured, three seriously, on Sunday.

The accident came near the northern French town of Orchies, when one of the motorbikes covering the event swerved into a crowd of spectators lining the route. No further details regarding the injuries were revealed.

Quick Step rider Boonen avoided a series of crashes on the notoriously slippery cobbles that wiped out his breakaway rivals, to come home alone in the historic Roubaix velodrome, finishing the 259km marathon in a time of six hours, 15 minutes, 54 seconds.

Italian Filippo Pozzato finished 47 seconds behind in second place while Norwegian Thor Hushovd won a three-man sprint for third.

Following a series of unsuccessful breakaways the winning six-man move came with 46km left. Boonen, Hushovd, Pozzato, Juan Antonio Flecha and Silence-Lotto team-mates Johan Van Summeren and Leif Hoste went clear and it soon became apparent the winner would come from this sextet.

However, with 25km remaining Boonen's hopes took a severe knock when he suffered a mechanical problem, forcing him to change bikes and leaving him chasing his rivals for two full kilometers.

Then, with 16km left, Flecha crashed on a cobbled bend, bringing down Hoste and forcing Van Summeren to wait for his team leader.

Hushovd kicked on but, just a kilometer later, the Norwegian hit the ground after clashing with the barriers on a tight left-hand bend, leaving Boonen 10 seconds clear of the tiring Pozzato.

Cheered on by throngs of Flemish fans, a mud-coated Boonen roder clear in the final 15km to become only the eighth rider in history to win the race three times and the first since fellow-Belgian Johan Museeuw.

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