Mathieu van der Poel's win at Paris-Roubaix sees 12th different winner in latest 12 editions

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.