Paris-Roubaix did not disappoint this year, with huge attacks, shocking crashes, stunning feats of strength, and of course, Mathieu Van der Poel and Wout Van Aert absolutely lighting up the race. The third Monument of the season, Paris-Roubaix, is arguably the best-known bike race outside of the Tour de France, and for good reason: With brutally cobbled roads, steep climbs and some of the most technical sections that you’ll ever see outside of a cyclocross race, it’s a fun one to watch. (And if you missed it, yesterday’s Paris Roubaix Femmes iteration of the race is well worth the replay – you can read the blow-by-blow below.)

With 29 sectors of cobbles over 256.6 kilometres, the race started out fairly casually, with no major attacks being launched by a peloton of riders who just wanted to get through the first 100 kilometres of pavement feeling good before hitting the first cobbles. Any small attacks were quickly shut down by the powerful peloton.

At 174 kilometres to go, about 20 kilometres from the first cobbled section, a four-man group was formed and finally began to pull away from the peloton. Riders included Israel-Premer Tech’d Derek Gee, Movistar’s Juri Hollman, Bora-Hansgrohe’s Jonas Koch and UAE Team Emirates’ Sjoerd Bax. The riders quickly opened a gap of nearly 90 seconds to the peloton as they headed into the first cobbled sector of the race.

A crash on the cobbles took out Peter Sagan—who also was forced to abandon the race last year after a crash. Sagan has not had the optimal retirement year, unfortunately.

The peloton seemed to calm down for a while, allowing the lead group to up their gap to two minutes. Small groups that had been dropped from the peloton in cobbled sections were able to rejoin the peloton.

The high tempo of the race—set to be the fastest Paris Roubaix ever with 100 kilometres left in the race—small mistakes started to happen in the peloton.

Jumbo-Visma certainly had a change of pace from the last few races, with last year’s Paris Roubaix winner Dylan Van Baarle potentially going for the win rather than Wout Van Aert, who seemed subdued during much of the early chunks of the race. But Van Aert swapped his bike at around 106 kilometres, and clearly, that marked a change in his attitude. He seemed unbothered as he rejoined the peloton, and for good reason. At 102 kilometres to go, Jumbo-Visma surged towards the front of the peloton to control (and ramp up) the pace as they got closer to the Arenburg Forest cobbled section. Van Aert suddenly surged ahead, with Van der Poel unsurprisingly moving up the side to try to answer him.

The surprise early attack into the Arenburg with Van Aerts and teammate LaPorte, along with several other riders including Mathieu Van der Poel, Stephen Küng (who nicely recovered from a series of mechanicals and bike changes), Madis Mihkels, and John Degenkolb, blew apart the peloton, dropping the almost two minute gap to the chasers to under one in a matter of minutes. They hit the Haveluy a Wallers sector at a screaming 60 kilometres per hour.

Heading into the Arenburg, Van Aert’s chase group closed on the leaders, dropping the gap to 19 seconds. But behind them, the peloton also surged to close the gap, dropping it to under 20 seconds from Van Aert’s group.

In the breakaway, Gee’s tire shredded completely off the front wheel as he was forced to stop and leave the leaders behind. And in the peloton, a huge crash also took out more than a dozen riders in the dusty dirt. Unfortunately, several riders were forced off their bikes, including Van Baarle, last year’s winner. Van Baarle was back up and chasing fast, but several riders in the peloton were forced to abandon.

At the front, Van Aert’s group chased down the lead group as Trek Segafredo’s Mads Pedersen madly chased to close the gap to the chasers. The peloton tried to reassemble after the crash and chase down the crash, but the confusion in the peloton cost them.

But the Arenburg isn’t kind to anyone. Van Aert’s teammate LaPorte was hit with a flat tire and pulled off as Van Aert’s group caught the leaders—costing Van Aert his major advantage in the lead group. (LaPorte was one of the riders who opted for the wireless adjustable tire pressure system, FYI.) Pedersen miraculously charged the leaders and managed to connect with that group, bridging the gap from a crash-filled peloton to the smooth lead group.

Two riders from Van der Poel’s Alepecin team swarmed towards the leaders, along with Ineos Grenadier Fillipo Ganna. They closed the gap to the leaders to create a 13-man lead group that now included Jasper Philipsen, Giannit Vermeersch (Gravel World Champion!), Laurenz Rex, Max Walscheid and Jonas Koch, switching the advantage from Van Aert with teammate LaPorte to Van der Poel with two teammates in the group. LaPorte dropped to 30 seconds behind, with the peloton 1:20 back with just over 80 kilometres of racing left.

That didn’t seem to deter Van Aert, though, who seemed comfortable sitting in the group as they smoothly sailed through the next cobbled sector. The peloton lost more time as the front group accelerated, though Nathan van Hooydonck of Jumbo Visma attempted to go off the front to close the gap—likely a fool’s errand, but the need to get a Jumbo Visma rider into the front group to help Van Aert is probably shrieking in his ear. Still, closing a 1:45 gap is hard to fathom. But LaPorte rallied and joined him, as did Florian Vermeersch (Lotto Dstny). They managed to get clear of the peloton in Sector 14 of cobbles, but struggled to drop the gap to the chase group beyond 1:10.

Koch and Hollman both fell off the lead group’s intense pace, and the chase group blew past them, dropping the gap to under a minute from the leaders with 53 kilometres to go. However, this was also the point where Van der Poel decided it was time to attack the leaders on the Auchy-lez-Orchies cobbled segment. But Degenkolb and Van Aert refused to let him go, with Pedersen chasing hard and Ganna trying desperately to close the gap. Van der Poel’s move was a bold one, but could have cost him teammates in the break and Vermeersch fell back and only nine riders remained in the small breakaway.

Van der Poel attacked again off the cobbles, but Van Aert countered him and attached himself to his wheel, refusing to take a pull and forcing Van der Poel to work on the front or return to the group. Despite Van Aert’s disinterest in swapping pulls with Van der Poel, the rest of the riders in the group struggled to respond to Van der Poel’s massive attack. But Van der Poel clearly realised that bringing Van Aert to the finish alone wasn’t the ideal move and seemed to allow the group to catch back on.

The lead group was whittled down from 13 to seven riders (Van Aert, Van der Poel, Pedersen, Küng, Degenkolb, Ganna and Philipsen), with the chase group of five still attempting to bridge the gap but losing more and more time. At 28 kilometres to go, Philipsen was forced to stop for a bike change, splitting him from the lead group and forcing him to chase hard to catch back on, though he managed to catch back up in under two minutes, surely allowing Van der Poel to breath a sign of relief.

As riders hit Camphin-en-Pevele, Pedersen took control of the group with 18 kilometres to go—not on the attack, simply controlling the pace. Heading into the five-star (read: Very Hard) Carrefour de l’Arbre cobbled sector, the riders clearly were trying to position themselves optimally to hit the tricky segment. Degenkolb sat behind Philipsen on the front as they hit the cobbles. Van der Poel moved up on the right but almost slid out on the grass, slotting into third position. Philipsen continued to drive the pace on the front, marked by Degenkolb but with Van der Poel and Van Aert behind. Degenkolb tried to move up on the right but hit the deck with a big crash as Van Aert attacked, going clear of the Alepecin riders.

Van der Poel furiously chased Van Aert up the Camphin as Degenkolb got back on the bike and began to chase. Van der Poel connected with Van Aert and the two titans of cycling began to finally separate from the lead group with 15 kilometres to go.

And Van der Poel attacked again, with Van Aert unable to go with his acceleration, an absolute tragedy for Van Aert as it turned out that he suffered a rear wheel puncture. Van der Poel took the opportunity to attack furiously. Van Aert made an incredibly fast bike change, but catching an attacking Van der Poel would be a nearly impossible task with only 14 kilometres to go. Van der Poel appeared to essentially dance over the cobbles, riding on them like they were a smooth track.

Behind him, Pedersen and Philipsen chased, with Van Aert just catching onto them with Ganna and Küng. Within minutes, Van der Poel’s lead had extended to a whopping 26 seconds, hitting the pavement at nearly 60 kilometres per hour. But Pedersen and Van Aert were unwilling to admit defeat, working hard to reconnect with Van der Poel. However, with Philipsen in the chase group and uninterested in bringing back his teammate, and Küng and Ganna barely hanging on, the chase group was disorganised and losing time on the Dutch superstar.

With a clear cobble sector for Van der Poel to navigate solo, he was in a better position to smoothly make it through compared to the now-exhausted chasers behind him. But Van Aert refused to give up, attacking into the sector as Philipsen and Pedersen countered him.

Van der Poel’s technical abilities were next-level on this sector, though, as he navigated around a bollard by mere millimetres, narrowly avoiding disaster on the tight fan-lined section of the course. With six kilometres to go, his distance of 27 seconds (and 480 kilometres) to Van Aert, Philipsen and Pedersen seemed insurmountable.

Van Aert attacked again with four kilometres to go, and Philipsen jumped on his wheel while Pedersen hung his head, unable to make the jump. It seemed clear that he wouldn’t be able to catch Van der Poel—but he’d be ready if something did happen to his chief rival.

Heading into the velodrome at Roubaix, Van der Poel had plenty of time to celebrate his first Paris-Roubaix win in 5:28:40—the fastest Paris-Roubaix ever—and with time to stop and watch the final battle between his teammate and his arch-nemesis as they entered the velodrome. The two entered the velodrome right behind Van der Poel as he crossed the line and Philipsen took a second to celebrate his teammate before the race for second began. The two approached it like a track race, firing on all cylinders—Philipsen played the sprint perfectly to take second ahead of Van Aert, an echo of last years 1-2 for Jumbo-Visma’s Van Baarle and Van Aert, but this year, a 1-2, for Alepecin’s Van der Poel and Philipsen.

It seemed inevitable for a while that the breakaway would be eventually be caught at the third running of Paris-Roubaix Femmes. But as the kilometres ticked away, it was becoming more and more clear that an elite group of chasers would not catch the break.

EF Education-Tibco-SVB’s Alison Jackson won a sprint at the finish in the Roubaix Velodrome to capture a shocking win that appeared to surprise even her. Jackson put herself in the early breakaway and, miraculously, that breakaway maintained the lead for the rest of the race, holding off a strong chase that fell just short.

Jackson joins 2021 winner Lizzie Deignan and 2022 winner Elisa Longo Borghini as champions of Paris-Roubaix Femmes.

How the race played out

A breakaway of 18 riders formed early, and wasted no time putting a sizeable gap between them and the peloton. Most of the pre-favourites were stuck in the peloton. St one point, that breakaway held an advantage of over five minutes.

The with about 51km to go—and the advantage of the breakaway just under four minutes—Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) decided she had seen enough and broke free of the peloton to try to chase back the break. She was joined by others, like Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM) and defending Paris-Roubaix Femmes champion Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) and the chase could really get going.

But with about 38km to go—and the chasers making up some good ground on the lead group—Longo Borgini lost control on a slippery section of cobbles and caused a crash involving 17 of the 18 chasers.

Eventually an elite group of chasers got organised and put on a furious acceleration to attempt to catch the breakaway. With under 10km to go, the advantage dwindled down to 10 seconds, and it seemed like a forgone conclusion that it would be caught. Kopecky, Longo Borgini and even Marianne Vos (who spent a lot of her day trying to chase back the peloton after an early puncture)

But somehow—some way!—the remaining seven riders managed to hold off the chasers. The seven riders in the breakaway entered the Roubaix Velodrome and it was clear that it would be a sprint between only them for the win.

Jackson, who did a lion’s share of the work to keep the breakaway free and was even waving her arms to encourage her fellow riders to keep pushing, was right near the front and launched a sprint with all she had.

The 2021 Canadian road race champion found enough in the end to take what is surely the biggest victory of her career.

Another plea for more equal coverage

While the men will get full coverage of the Paris-Roubaix Hommes on Sunday, that was not the case for the women on Saturday. Paris-Roubaix Femmes is 145.5km in length, but coverage on Peacock only started with just under 80km to go at 9 a.m. EDT.

Since fans missed the first 65.5km of the race, they also missed the forming of the early break, which ended up defining much of the race. This isn’t the first time that coverage has missed key moves. You may recall the penultimate stage of the Tour de France Femmes last year when coverage started after Annemiek van Vleuten and Demi Vollering had already put a massive gap between them and the rest of the field.

Here’s hoping next year’s edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes includes the whole race. You never know when an early move could decide it all.