Paris-Roubaix:Mathieu van der Poel retains 'Hell of the North' title

Mathieu van der Poel towered above his rivals to retain the  "Hell of the North" Paris-Roubaix bike race title , a week after burnishing his reputation with his third victory at the revered Tour of Flanders.

The Paris-Roubaix is considered to be the hardest one-day cycling race. That's largely because of the unforgiving, bone-jarring cobbled sections. This year's 260 km race route featured 55 km of cobbled sections.

According to Ivan Cortina, the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix are a lot different compared to the Belgian classics. They strike you much harder. They are much bigger with more space in between. They are more brutal," he said. 

Ward Vanhoof says you feel Paris-Roubaix especially the week after. "You feel it has another impact on you than other races because you have like 60 km of cobbles. You can feel the whole week that you have done Paris-Roubaix," he said.

Tour de Flanders
A week earlier, wearing the reigning world champion's rainbow jersey, the 29-year-old Belgian won the Tour de Flanders.

For cycling purists, the Tour of Flanders is an unofficial world championships, and last Sunday Van der Poel crushed all his rivals in the race.

He is already one of the all-time greats of one-day road cycling, and he was cheered over every cobble on the final 60km of his solo break and lauded by his current key rival Mads Pedersen on arrival.

"Mathieu was in his own league," said the Danish Lidl Trek rider who shot to fame winning the Yorkshire world championships in 2019.

"He's impressive. I just couldn't follow him. And I'm at a loss as to how to beat him. I was at 100 percent."

 Van der Poel won two of cycling's super-long five monuments in 2023, but in March, rather than protect his Milan-San Remo, Van der Poel led out teammate Jasper Philipsen who sprinted to victory.

Having passed up his chance to win the first monument of the season he has now won the following two in just two weeks.

"I could only have dreamed of this, but winning all these races while being world champion, is amazing," Van der Poel said Sunday. He described his latest win as "a special moment, a cool day," that won't last forever.