In the past few years, several riders have won who could be deemed surprise winners. Servais Knaven was arguably the recipient of being in the right place at the right time. While he has a stage win in the TDF and several other minor victories when compared to P-R, his 1st in P-R was his only top ten placing in a classic considered a monument, and far and away his highest achievement. No one expected or was predicting him to win.

Frederic Guesdon(heard of him?) was a complete shot in the dark when he won. He does have a French Cup victory to his credit, a 6th in the Tour of Flanders, and a stage in the Dauphine, but other than that, there were no indicates he would win this race. He has no other top ten placings in classics.

Demol was away in a break with the legendary Wegemuller that the peloton let get to far ahead.

Still, overall, the race is something like a butter churn; it's violence causes the cream to rise to the top. The list of winners reads like an all star cast, and Cancellara is in the mold of big strong pursuit/time trial riders like Madiot and Moser who are especially well suited to this race.