Mathieu van der Poel's win at Paris-Roubaix sees 12th different winner in latest 12 editions
Cycling
Paris-Roubaix is an unpredictable race and the 2023 edition proved it once again. A lot of things happened during the race that led to the victory of Mathieu van der Poel who is the 12th different winner is the most recent 12 editions.
Jumbo-Visma raced quite well, but the punctures of Christophe Laporte and Wout van Aert at key moments, plus the fall of 2022 winner Dylan van Baarle, made the race impossible to win. Van der Poel, for his part, came very close to crashing several times, but escaped and ended up taking the win as he stayed on the bike throughout the final hours. So it's not surprising that men like Peter Sagan, who for years was the strongest rider, could only win it once. Since Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara dominated, no one has been able to repeat.
Roubaix is a completely unpredictable race, hence its nickname the 'Hell of the North' couldn't be more accurate. That has meant that in the last 12 editions of the French monument, 12 different cyclists have won:
YEAR - WINNER
2011 - Johan Vansummeren
2012- Tom Boonen
2013- Fabian Cancellara
2014- Niki Terpstra
2015- John Degenkolb
2016 - Mathew Hayman
2017 - Greg van Avermaet
2018 - Peter Sagan
2019 - Philippe Gilbert
2020 - Not raced (Covid-19)
2021 - Sonny Colbrelli
2022 - Dylan van Baarle
2023 - Mathieu van der Poel
Journalist Raul Banqueri explains perfectly why this happened by comparing Paris-Roubaix with the Tour of Flanders: "In Flanders there are sections to make the difference by being the strongest. In Roubaix no sector is 100% decisive, but every kilometer can be. More tactics and more surprises".
To this we must add that the pavé sections are much more complicated than those of Flanders, which causes more crashes and more punctures that end up being decisive for the race.
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- well she’s only been a pro for 4 years, and even without “figuring out” cycling yet she’s won the tour de france (twice), the vuelta, liége-bastogne-liége (twice), strade bianchi, amstel gold, fleche-wallone, dwars door vlaandren, and a bunch of individual stages. i agree that her undeveloped tactical IQ is a “ weakness” (obviously a byproduct of her enormous strength that has allowed her to get away with tactical blunders and still be a big winner), but there’s still time to change that. in the men’s side sometime like mathieu van der poel was still a bit of a tactical knucklehead as late as age 26 or so, and he was born into pro cycling. he finally got tired of blowing opportunities when he realized that they don’t present themselves all that often. vollering may come to the same conclusion. i hope so. greatness like she’s capable of would be a shame to squander to any unnecessary degree.OCexile09-01-2025
- She appears as dominant among the women as Pogacar is in the men's peloton. But she doesn't appear to have even a basic understanding of racing tactics. Moreover, it seems like the entire field races against her, including her own team. This is odd, as she seems like a nice person in interviews, but something is clearly going on. If she just wants to go hard, she might do better switching to triathlon, or just running. It doesn't seem like she is going to figure out bike racing.
Barney09-01-2025 - i have MASSIVE respect for vollering as an athlete. how can you not? but i do agree about the limits of her tactical and interpersonal skills. if she had both to the same degree as someone like kasia niewiadoma, she would end her career someday as one of the greatest cyclists of all time — male, female, whatever…OCexile08-01-2025
- Completely agree.Mistermaumau08-01-2025
- i’m pretty sure mathieu has never spent a moment of his adult life dreaming of winning the Tour. he’s known for a very long time that that’s not the kind of rider he is. I’m also pretty sure he’s known for a very long time that TDF stages count for a lot in the palmares of big puncheurs like him and wout. he hasn’t decided he doesn’t care about racking up stage wins at the tour because they wouldn’t matter in terms of his legacy. he KNOWS they would. so it’s more interesting than that. he doesn’t care about stages IN SPITE of knowing how much they “matter.” he doesn’t care because he just DOESN’T CARE about anyone else’s standards or judgments. he decides what he’s interested in, what captures his imagination, and he just does THAT (within the WIDE parameters of free choice he’s allowed at Alpecin, which are certainly wider and freer than anyone else in the peloton).OCexile08-01-2025
- Isn't the riders comming from indoor e-sport cycling crashing a lot?Jkolner12308-01-2025
- Right... Unless the two people above consider 2 Paris Roubaix and 3 Ronde meaningless... You don't win that many editions by being lucky.alsene08-01-2025
- Call it how you want, in order to win which matters to him, even if it’s for the team as lead-out, he has to and tries to be in top shape 10 out of 12 months, whether that’s a bunch of peaks, a couple of prolonged peaks or just that his general level is so good he can win anytime without peaking is a new discussion.Jumpyjohn08-01-2025
- I think he’s right and mental attitude is one of the biggest factors at elite level, especially over 3 weeks.Jumpyjohn08-01-2025
- Enforcing cease and desist isn't working. The site is still live (8 Jan 13:55 CET)leodis08-01-2025