Pablo de la Calle
Updated Sunday, April 7, 2024-17:05
''This race sucks, but I'll come back to win it.''
Bernard Hinault
defined like no one else the sensations of frustration, masochism and revenge that the most tremendous test generates. The cobbled hell of Paris-Roubaix captivates by the demand for supreme efforts in an endless fight for survival. A superlative agony that exalts gifted people like
Mathieu van der Poel (VDP)
, the Dutch phenomenon, who this Sunday repeated his triumph in the emblematic velodrome that crowns the classic of the tormenting Pavé.
VDP flew on a surface that punishes the arms and legs with a constant rattling and that clouds the mind with endless ordeal. ''When this classic ends it seems like a truck has hit you.
You can't move for a week
,' say some of the survivors of this 259-kilometer race, which includes 55.7 kilometers of cobblestone, divided into 29 segments.
In such hostile territory, this time without rain, Van der Poel defeated his enemies with only two attacks. His superiority is capital, as he already demonstrated in the Tour of Flanders, with another long-distance offensive. The first order this Sunday was launched in the
Arenberg Forest
, a symbolic area of the most extreme cycling, which yesterday launched a controversial chicane to slow down the entry into the cobbled area. There, with 94 kilometers to go before the finish line at the Roubaix velodrome, he accelerated to punish Mads Pedersen and select the race. In the small platoon of the best there were, among others,
Stefan Küng
(Groupama),
Nils Politt
(UAE),
Vermeersch
(Alpecin),
Wellens
(UAE). The group traveled stretched, looking for grass escapes in the cobble sectors.
The Alpecin leader's second challenge came with 59 kilometers to go, in Orchies, a four-star stone area. With his hands firmly on the handlebars, his eyes fixed on the horizon, he began another fantastic ride. The
Beast
's enemies
attempted neutralization, but soon gave up on their objective. At five kilometers, the distance amounted to a minute. The rent rose to three minutes at Carrefour de l'Arbre. The audience enthusiastically applauded the hero. Behind them,
Jasper Philipsen
, Pedersen and Politt were fighting for two places on the podium.
Poulidor
's insatiable grandson
left only the crumbs. Philipsen, a teammate in Alpecin, was second, and Pedersen, third. The same first places in 2023. Double party for the Alpecin
Van der Poel, who defended the title of the 2023 edition with insulting authority, continues to adorn his record as one of the most successful classicomaniacs of recent decades. At 29 years old he already has six wins in
Monuments,
the two victories in Paris-Roubaix must be added those of the Tour of Flanders (2020, 2022 and 2024) and a Milan-San Remo (2023). The last ones to complete the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in the same season were the Belgian
Tom Boonen
and the Swiss
Fabian Cancellara
, something that
Eddy Merck
never achieved .
VDP won the Hell of the North wearing the rainbow jersey, as Bernard Hinault, the Frenchman who hated the masochism of Roubaix, did in 1981.