Paris-Roubaix 2025, Van Der Poel: "I've found my leg again. Pogacar? He'll try again"

Roubaix (France), 13 April 2025 - The haul so far from the Monument the two of them split the season, taking turns before today's overtaking: Mathieu van der Poel, After the Milan-Sanremo 2025, he puts the arrow and also wins the Paris-Roubaix 2025, bringing down that hat-trick of consecutive successes that had only been achieved by Octave Lapize e Francesco Moser. The other contender is Tadej pogacar, making his debut in theHell of the North. Good start, apart from a slip on a curve (and that's no small thing) that compromises his pursuit of the rider who is in any case better and stronger on the cobblestones also due to the legacy of the years of cyclocross, from which he also brings the ugly tradition to these latitudes of becoming the target of objects thrown (and not only) by some reckless person. In the end, however, in the velodrome it's a party for everyone: even for the third-placed rider Mads pedersen.  

Van Der Poel's statements

  Inevitably, a Van der Poel increasingly lord of the cobblestones and Monument, with the immediate draw at 8 with the loot of pogacar, is prodded about the possible taste of immediate revenge after the third place in Giro delle Fiandre 2025 of last week. "I'm sincerely sorry also for Tadej and for that mistake on the curve, where he took the wrong trajectory: we were going really fast and I think he underestimated it. I was quite quick to react and then I don't know what happened next because I immediately gained a small gap. Unfortunately these are things that are part of the race and I think that without that mistake it would have been difficult to detach him and we would have arrived at the velodrome together. But knowing him, in a year he will come back here and try again more aggressively than before: he is an extraordinary talent and everything he has achieved so far thanks to his unique talent reminds us of that". The nephew of Raymond Poulidor and, as such, therefore with French blood in his veins, among other things recovering from complicated days due to an infection and the use of antibiotics. In the end, between reality and pre-tactics, l'Alpecin-Deceuninck si confirm a battleship in the Classics also thanks to the contribution of the second lines such as Jasper Phillipsen, today precious in the central part of the race, the one in which it seemed to be a three-way fight that instead became a duel and then, indeed, a monologue. "This victory means a lot to me. It was a very hard race and today I suffered a lot. Even after the fall of pogacar I struggled, because in that moment I had to continue and give it my all. Finally - continues the '95 class - in the last two sectors on cobblestones I had a headwind and I spent a lot, even though I was happy to have made it". And yet, before raising my arms (and bike) to the sky, even Van der Poel had to deal with a setback, among other things in one of the most iconic and complicated sectors, the Carrefour de l'Arbre. "When I punctured I didn't know how much of an advantage I had because the radio wasn't working and so I couldn't even communicate with the team car. Fortunately, everything went well and - concludes the Dutchman - I'm happy to have my leg back".

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