OPINION | Wout van Aert will beat Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar to win Paris-Roubaix 2026

Lately, nobody seems to believe in Wout van Aert. Not because he’s a dud, as some (many) suggest. It’s because Wout van Aert is taking on two of the best riders in history while helping another beat one of them.

In this modern cycling we’re holding in our hands, where it feels like it’s always been this way, the Monuments are everything and the rest barely counts. In this modern cycling, winning 10 Tour de France stages and being pivotal as your teammate steals two Tours from the only rider comparable to Eddy Merckx on palmarès apparently carries no merit.

Being Wout van Aert can’t be easy. Not at all. By comparison, being Pogacar is: I’m great at everything and I prove it every day. By comparison, being Van der Poel is: I’m a Classics beast, I win what I need to win, and all is well. By comparison, being Jonas Vingegaard is: I win Grand Tours, I win stage races, I don’t showboat, I disappear with my family six months a year and let the haters on Twitter, X—or whatever it’s called now—jump around. But being Wout van Aert is not.

Being theoretically the same as Van der Poel, yet ending up winning Tour de France time trials, winning on Mont Ventoux, beating the world’s best sprinters in bunch kicks, and blowing Pogacar off the wheel in high mountains is being different. Lining them up as if both should have won the same is unfair. Not just unfair—untrue.

And the worst part of that falsehood is that he bought into it himself. He convinced himself that, after doing all the above, he could reach the Tour of Flanders and soak up the hammer blows on the bergs from Van der Poel and Pogacar. Or that he could reach the end of a 230-kilometre Classic and outsprint the fastest guy there.

But no. In this modern cycling, if you don’t have the body of Pogacar, Del Toro or now Seixas, you can’t win everywhere. In this modern cycling you have to be selfish. You have to think of yourself, not the team, and the Tour de France has condemned him in the court of opinion. Van Aert is Almodóvar in the hands of Boyero. Van Aert is a Belgian pretending to be Spanish. Multidisciplinary. Valverde-esque but carrying many more kilos. The fact is he has won everywhere, yet holds only one Monument. And, as I said, while in the 20th century that may have mattered less, now it’s what counts. And he has only a Sannremo.

The truth is that, at 31 springs, nothing should matter to him anymore. Either he wins Roubaix (Flanders with Pogacar is impossible) or his legacy will be shredded by merciless tweeters and critics (the merciless bit is for the critics; the rest, well, it’s in the name).

And here stands Wout van Aert and the Paris–Roubaix 2026. And here stands the possibility of his everlasting salvation. Beyond his customary early-season physical issues, he seems to have found form in time and, after a strong third at Sannremo, he raced at a high level in the regrettably renamed Gent–Wevelgem. On Van der Poel’s level on the bergs. At his true level when he’s not honing other targets to help Visma set up the dour Dane’s Tour bid.

Without doubt this could be one of his last chances, though in cycling you never know. Honestly, I think he has the legs to live with Van der Poel and Pogacar at Roubaix and then once you hit the velodrome, anything can happen.

For me, Van Aert doesn’t need to win anything else to be eternal, but he, his faithful, and his “Boyeristas” of the moment need it. The date is Sunday, 12th of April 2026. It’s never too late to satisfy the unsatisfied, himself included.

By the numbers, Van Aert’s year isn’t exceptional. After another physical setback and a cyclocross campaign dominated by Van der Poel, he opened at Samyn without fanfare before taking 10th at Strade. He then slipped through Tirreno–Adriatico with little to note, scraping a fifth place and working for Jorgenson. However, when it mattered he has been excellent as the Classics arrived: third at Milano–Sanremo after an attack down the Poggio and great sensations at Middelkerke - Wevelgem, holding Van der Poel and only narrowly missing the finish with him. A shame we didn’t see that sprint. We’ll see what he can do at the Tour of Flanders. I see him on the podium, a step behind Pogacar and VDP, and then comes Roubaix...