Three Paris-Roubaix victories in a row. Only twice before has that happened, and not since 1980. Mathieu van der Poel is historic, a powerhouse, a cobbled crusher the like of which we haven’t seen for decades. Most bike riders see those horrible upturned stones of the Hell of the North as nasty, bone-shattering obstacles, but he sees them as launchpads to victory. Most bike riders just want to finish the race without losing layers of skin, but he enters the velodrome each and every time with nobody else for company. And most bike riders view the fabled concrete pistes as the end of their torture, but he sees it as another glorious homecoming. 

He can’t even feign modesty – he recognises what he’s doing is extraordinary. “Just winning three times would already be super special and it’s not something you expect when you start racing, so to do it three years in a row in a race like Roubaix where you also need some luck is quite exceptional,” he said. Yup, it is. Of course, his manner of victory this time around wasn’t quite as epic as the two before, he capitalising on Tadej Pogačar crashing out of a corner, but all the same, Van der Poel was uncatchable, unsurpassable, unbeatable, yet again. He’s the first rider ever to win successive editions of Roubaix by more than a minute.

There can and will be no doubt that the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider is the greatest Classics rider of his generation – three wins in both the Tour of Flanders and Roubaix and two Milan-Sanremo victories is unmatched in the current era. The question now is if he is the greatest Classics rider this century. With his latest triumph, the 30-year-old moves onto eight Monuments – one more than both Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara accrued. And they didn’t have to fight off Pogačar, this century’s Eddy Merckx who can do absolutely everything.

This article was published by Rouleur during Paris-Roubaix 2025. You can read the full article here.