Mathieu van der Poel won the prominent French cycling race Paris-Roubaix on Sunday. The Dutchman was able to shake off his rival Wout van Aert 15 kilometers from the finish when the Belgian got a flat tire on the cobblestones. Van der Poel: „I didn’t realize it at first, but when I passed him he suddenly drove very slowly. It’s bad luck for him and I think otherwise we would have driven to the finish with the two of us.”
Van der Poel’s Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate, the Belgian Jasper Philipsen, crossed the finish line second. A few minutes before Van Aert had to get off because of his flat tire, the German former winner John Degenkolb crashed because he came into contact with Van der Poel. He made an unexpected move because he had to avoid Philipsen.
Van der Poel spoke according to the ANP news agency after his victory of his best cycling spring ever. “I felt super strong, but this victory is also the result of perfect teamwork,” the Alpecin-Deceuninck leader told ANP after seeing teammate Philipsen finish second. Earlier this year, Van der Poel also won Milan-Sanremo, finished second in the Tour of Flanders and became cyclocross world champion for the fifth time. In 2020 and 2022 he won the Tour of Flanders.