Wout van Aert shattered a decade-old jinx to win Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, outduelling the world champion, Tadej Pogacar, in a brutal classic race across the cobbles, while Franziska Koch edged out Marianne Vos in the women’s race.
The 31-year-old sustained a puncture as did Pogacar and their great rival Mathieu van der Poel, who had two mechanical problems and could not contest the final sprint, which went in Van Aert’s favour for his second title in one of the five Monument classics after his Milan-Sanremo victory in 2020.
Van Aert, who had been plagued by bad luck in the Queen of the Classics, thwarted Pogacar’s attacks on the cobbles and wrapped it up with a trademark burst of speed in the final straight on the Roubaix Velodrome. Van Aert’s fellow Belgian Jasper Stuyven took third place, 13 seconds behind.
Van der Poel, seeking a fourth consecutive win in the race, finished fourth despite losing more than two minutes following a mechanical issue on a tricky cobbled sector of the course.
“It’s everything to me, it’s been a goal since I first did this race. I stopped believing a lot of times but I would start believing again the next day,” said Van Aert, who had endured repeated punctures and crashes in the Flanders classics.
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider dedicated his title to former teammate Michael Goolaerts, who died in 2018 after suffering a cardiac arrest during the race. “Arriving for a final sprint with the world champion and beating him in a sprint is very special,” Van Aert added.
Pogacar, who won the first two Monument classics of the season in the Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders, was looking to become the first Tour de France champion to prevail in the “Hell of the North” since France’s Bernard Hinault in 1981.
In the women’s race, Germany’s Koch beat the great Vos to claim the biggest victory of her career. The 25-year-old outfoxed her Visma-Lease a Bike teammates Vos and last year’s champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in a three-up sprint to the line.
“It’s kind of hard to believe. I’ve been dreaming about it, but Roubaix is a race where anything can happen, and that it worked out in the end, it’s like a dream,” said Koch. “Having two riders of the same team [against you] is a challenge on the one hand, on the other hand also a bit of a benefit because the work is not necessarily on you. I tried to get rid of them a little bit but in the end I had to gamble on the sprint.”
Ferrand-Prévot tried to set up her illustrious teammate for the victory, but Koch launched her sprint first and held off Vos by half a wheel to win. It was a cruel defeat for the former world and Olympic champion Vos, whose father died just over a week ago.
“I tried to focus as much as possible on race itself,” said the 38-year-old Vos, who spoke of how the loss of her father had hit her hard. “Of course we miss him, just calling, having a small WhatsApp or picture or whatever. In the end, you just try and focus on what you need to do – it’s what I always do.”
Four riders had broken clear with 45km to ride in the gruelling 143km-long cobbled classic. Hungarian Blanka Vas was dropped after an acceleration by Vos, which also briefly distanced Ferrand-Prévo, who dug in to reach the famous old velodrome in Roubaix alongside Vos and Koch. She tried to lead out the sprint to help Vos, but Koch proved too strong.
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