The 23-year-old Belgian rider was found unconscious by race doctors at the International Cycling Union (UCI) WorldTour event.

The Veranda's Willems-Crelan rider fell on the second set of cobbles in the one-day classic in northern France.

He suffered cardiac arrest and was airlifted to hospital in Lille but died at 9.40pm.

Remy Schwartz, from the Cambrai prosecutor's office, has revealed Goolaerts suffered a heart attack which ultimately caused him to crash.

"The autopsy confirms the previous hypothesis that death was due to a heart attack and not a crash," he said, according to Agence France-Presse.

"He suffered an attack while racing.

"His heart stopped, and that's why he crashed.

"For now, we will carry out toxicology and pathological exams to determine the real cause of the attack."

Authorities are claimed to be carrying out a non-criminal investigation into Goolaerts death.

Goolaerts was in his fourth season - in two spells - with the Belgian outfit.

He spent 2013 and 2014 with them at continental level, and returned in 2017 after a season as a trainee with Belgian World Tour team Lotto-Soudal, winning the opening stage of the 2016 Tour du Loir-et-Cher on the UCI Europe Tour.

He rode several of the cobbled classics and semi-classics this season, finishing ninth at Dwars door West-Vlaanderen and 20th at both Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and Driedaagse De Panne.

Goolaerts was riding his first senior Paris-Roubaix, having competed in the under-23 edition in 2015.

Paris-Roubaix, known as the "Hell of the North", is regarded as one of the toughest races in cycling, featuring 29 cobbled sections.

The event is one of the five "Monuments" of the season - the most prestigious one-day races.

Veranda's Willems-Crelan rode the De Brabantse Pijl Flanders Classic on Wednesday (April 11), following consultation with Goolaerts’ family and their riders.

Their entire team attended the race, with those not riding there to offer support.

The team have now announced they will have a two-week break from competition, before returning to racing on May 1.

"It was a very emotional day for the whole team and we can only be proud of how our riders came together," a team statement read.

"Everyone helped each other through this first difficult race without Goolie.

"After a two-and-a-half-week rest period, a period that is also necessary to reflect on the loss of Goolie and his family and our riders to allow time to process this.

"In the meantime we thank everyone, organisations, teams, ex-riders, friends, former colleagues, sponsors, partners, associations and governments for the many statements of support that we received in the meantime.

"For the coming days and weeks we can only ask to respect the peace and privacy of the family and riders in this period of mourning and processing."