"I honestly didn't think Pogacar would come so soon" - Tour de France director excited about Tadej Pogacar's Paris-Roubaix participation
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar made clear that he'll participate at Paris-Roubaix for the first time this season. With the ambition to win. There are still bigger favourites for the Hell of the North, however the three-time Tour de France champion has already shown that cobbles are not an obstacle for him.
For the director of the Grande Boucle, Christian Prudhomme, it's simply "fantastic to see the last Tour winner at the start" of the monument. It's not every day that a Tour champion turns up to ride the hardest cobbled race on the calendar. The more so a defending champion. In fact, it's something that hasn't happened for thirty years.
Last Tour de France winner to start at Paris-Roubaix would be 2012 champion Bradley Wiggins who finished 9th on that occasion. If Pogacar were to repeat this feat, it would certainly count as a solid debut.
"I honestly didn't think Pogacar would come so soon. When he was training in Arenberg, it was clear that his team's communication was intentional, but I didn't think he'd come now. It's crazy," added the Tour de France director according to Marca.
In this sense, Prudhomme has no doubts about the world champion's performance in Roubaix: "We already saw what he was capable of on the cobblestones in 2022, at the Tour de France on the Arenberg stage. He went with Stuyven and managed to escape. We were happy to have Bradley Wiggins at the start in 2014, after winning the Tour in 2012. Now, we are back on top, as Pogacar will be there to win."
Asked whether he'll be able to finish first at the Roubaix velodrome, the Tour de France boss doesn't dare to guess: "Mathieu van der Poel is still the favorite, of course, but we're going to see an incredible fight, especially because Pogacar is so daring. He's so daring, all the time. We're eagerly awaiting the race."
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- hoping wout can “kick start” his season at de ronde just shows why hope is a terrible strategy. the hardest race of the classics season with both pog and mathieu on stratospheric form. good luck. and waiting for mvdp to eventually be “not as good” isn’t a great plan either, i think. matthieu only seems to keep getting BETTER.OCexile31-03-2025
- Too much amatuer psychology. How about this: "he was never as good as when he had not suffered multiple career-threatening injuries." What is happening to him is what happened to Alaphilippe, Bernal, and others. You will notice that his two major peers -- MVDP and Mads - are both at their all time best. You will also note that neither is coming off of anything like the same last 18 months that Wout is. Go back to 2022, then roll the tape forward with Wout remaining healhty and one of them having had multiple traumatic falls. Odds are good he'd be at his dominant best and they would not.MidnightRider31-03-2025
- Raymond Poulidor, Alfredo Binda.... where do we stop. If you want to retitle it is Primoz Roglic the bestr rider never to win the tour in the last ten or 20 years then that might be betterslappers6631-03-2025
- Let me help you. Alfredo BindaUpHill31-03-2025
- He'll certainly last it and prob ride his own race, at the front 😁
leedorney31-03-2025 - Gaio Primus Caesar Roglus, Rome is waiting for you, Imperator :-)).
maria2024202431-03-2025 - And he probably wasn’t even at the limit ;-) Have to wonder how much Mads could catch up if he’d tune his physique to be as sharp as MVDPs’Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Respect for giving Van Eetvelt credit there.Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- He’s already a star for me for HAVING complained about it, the recent trend having been, let them then try to take advantage by making them sign NDAs ;-)Mistermaumau31-03-2025
- Agreed, but if it was a radio thing then all the riders should have the same story and it would be easy to call anyone out. Kind of surprised this isn’t cleared up half officially afterwards, just like the Alaphilippe divorce, seems like once something spreads on the net it kind of gets accepted that everyone wants to have their own truth so no-one bothers to contest anything that’s verifiable anymore, we all just move on.Mistermaumau31-03-2025