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Mathieu van der Poel won the “queen of the classics” on Sunday. The Dutchman offered himself his first Paris-Roubaix, the fourth Monument of his career, at the end of an eventful 120th edition and marked by the bad luck of Wout Van Aert, who came third.
The “Hell of the North” smiled on Sunday, April 9, the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who won a solo victory after 256.6 kilometers of racing, including 54.5 cobblestones. For his part, Wout Wan Aert, unlucky in this Paris-Roubaix, finished in third place.
Everything changed in the Carrefour de l’Arbre, 16 km from the finish, when Wout Van Aert went on the attack, before puncturing the rear wheel. This dramatic turn of events benefited Van der Poel, the only one to have managed to follow the Belgian in the royal breakaway made up of seven riders, including the main favourites.
The 28-year-old Dutchman then flew to victory and was able to savor his triumph at the Roubaix velodrome, where he won 46 seconds ahead of his teammate, the Belgian Jasper Philipsen, and Van Aert.
“It’s extraordinary, especially to go on the track alone. We’re doing 1 and 2 with Jasper. We’re really going to celebrate it tonight because it may never happen again. I’m having the best season of classics of my career . It’s unbelievable,” said Van der Poel, who won in front of his mother, Corinne Poulidor.
A fourth Monument
This is the fourth victory for Raymond Poulidor’s grandson in one of the five Monuments, the biggest classics on the calendar, after the Tour of Flanders in 2020 and 2022, and Milan-Sanremo in 2023.
He also finished second in the Tour of Flanders last Sunday.
The race, contested under a beautiful spring sun, was marked by many crashes, including those which led to the abandonment of the defending champion, Dylan van Baarle, and the former triple world champion Peter Sagan.
Van der Poel, just before taking off for victory, himself caused the fall of the German John Degenkolb in the breakaway.
>> To read also: “Cycling: the Paris-Roubaix women won by the Canadian Alison Jackson”
With AFP
