Dutch cycling world champion Mathieu Van Der Poel won his second Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, a week after his victory at the Tour of Flanders. He won with an abysmal gap of three minutes over his pursuers. He is now the only active rider to have six Monuments to his name: he has won Paris-Roubaix twice, the Tour of Flanders three times and the Milan-Sanremo race once.
Published on: 07/04/2024 – 18:03
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He did not leave his competitors with hope. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin) won his second Paris-Roubaix solo on Sunday April 7 after a 60 km raid to achieve the double on the cobbled Monuments, a week after his victory at the Tour of Flanders.
Flying over the cobbles thanks to diabolical dexterity, avoiding all the traps, the Dutchman raised his arms on the track of the Roubaix velodrome with a three-minute lead, an abysmal gap, over his Belgian teammate Jasper Philipsen and the Dane Mads Pedersen .
🌈 𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕖𝕦 𝕧𝕒𝕟 𝕕𝕖𝕣 ℙ𝕠𝕖𝕝, king of Roubaix 👑
🌈 𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕖𝕦 𝕧𝕒𝕟 𝕕𝕖𝕣 ℙ𝕠𝕖𝕝, roi de Roubaix 👑#ParisRoubaix pic.twitter.com/wzg0ezY0rk
— Paris-Roubaix (@parisroubaix) April 7, 2024
The world champion becomes the eleventh rider in history, the first since Fabian Cancellara in 2013, to accomplish this feat. He is now the only active runner to have six Monuments to his name, one more than Tadej Pogacar.
A week after his 44 km ride at the “Ronde” last Sunday, he won at the end of a new solitary raid, 60 km this time, exactly like Andreï Tchmil thirty years ago, folding all suspense into accelerating in the paved sector of Orchies in the face of resigned competition.
Herculean palmarès
The grandson of Raymond Poulidor thus joins, at 29 years old, champions like Fabian Cancellara, Tom Boonen, Roger De Vlaeminck and Rik Van Looy in winning the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in the same year, a Herculean task reserved for the most big.
Already a winner last year, Van der Poel is also the first to triumph two years in a row on the cobbles of the Hell of the North after Tom Boonen in 2008 and 2009.
It is finally a triumph for his Alpecin team which, in an unprecedented move, won the first three Monuments of the year with also the success of Jasper Philipsen, well helped by Van der Poel, in March on Milan-Sanremo.
Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen have punctures
The race, completed at record speed with a strong wind at our backs, settled very quickly with the peloton quickly split into small groups.
This early selection made it possible to avoid massive falls in strategic sectors such as the controversial chicane before the Arenberg gap which the favorites negotiated within a small peloton of only around thirty riders.
But the gap caused damage and caused confusion after the puncture, on its exit, of several big guns, Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen in the lead.
The group of favorites, with no French except Hugo Page, was then reconstituted. Before witnessing, helplessly, Van der Poel’s meteoric start on his way to glory.
With AFP
