World champion Lotte Kopecky won a six-rider dash for the line to claim the women's Paris-Roubaix cobbled classic on Saturday in a nail-biting finale.

The Belgian came from the back of the field on the final corner after half a dozen riders had entered the Roubaix velodrome ahead of the pack after a 148.5km ride from Denain.

The course included 29.2km of bone-shaking cobbles along the old mining roads of the Picardy region bordering Belgium.

Italian Elisa Balsamo of Lidl-Trek was second after leading most of the two laps of the velodrome, while Briton Pfeiffer Georgi overtook Marianne Vos on the line to steal in for third.

Rain during the week combined with sunshine on the day made the road surfaces slick, with huge puddles in some sections and some riders flying off the road into ditches.

This was the fourth women's edition of the so called 'Hell of the North', with the 121st men's race over 260km taking place on Sunday.