Welcome to the Hell of the North: 3-time Tour champion Pogacar to make Paris-Roubaix debut

NBC Sports

01-04-2025

PARIS — Welcome to the Hell of the North, Tadej Pogacar.
The three-time Tour de France champion from Slovenia will take part for the first time in Paris-Roubaix, the grueling cycling classic over cobblestones held in northern France next month, his team said on Wednesday.
Pogacar will seek to become the first Tour de France champion to win in Roubaix since cycling great Bernard Hinault back in 1981.
'Paris-Roubaix is a challenge worthy of his talent. It's far from a guaranteed victory because he will face a course that doesn't suit him naturally, but I think that's exactly what drives him — the chance to make cycling history,' said Paris-Roubaix race director Thierry Gouvenou. 'This is a huge moment for cycling.'
It was initially planned for Pogacar, the reigning men's road world champion, to compete in both the E3 Saxo Classic and Gent-Wevelgem this week. He scrapped both events from his race program to prepare for the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, which are part of the five 'monuments' in one-day cycling alongside Liège–Bastogne–Liège, the Tour of Lombardy and Milan-San Remo.
Pogacar has seven monuments under his belt already — the Tour of Flanders once, Liège–Bastogne–Liège twice and the Tour of Lombardy four times.
The UAE Team Emirates squad said Pogacar adjusted his calendar 'to focus on the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix instead, aiming for peak form in those iconic races.'
Launched in 1896, the Paris-Roubaix is generally filled with punctures, crashes and other drama. It is known in French as the Enfer du Nord — the Hell of the North.
The nickname is said to have been coined in 1919 by a journalist to describe the shelled and destroyed World War One wastelands the race picked its way through. It took that year's winner, Henri Pelissier, more than 12 hours to reach Roubaix, more than twice as long as it took last year's male champion Mathieu van der Poel.
Pogacar the new Merckx
Paris-Roubaix is one of the few big titles missing from Pogacar's already impressive collection of silverware. The 26-year-old athlete is arguably the most exciting rider of his generation, capable of winning on all terrains with an appetite for victory that has drawn comparisons with the great Eddy Merckx.
Although he has never ridden Paris-Roubaix before, Pogacar got a taste of the race's cobblestones during the crash-marred fifth stage of the 2022 Tour de France. He enjoyed a sensational trip that day, gaining time on many of his rivals at the end of a ride over some of the feared cobbles of the brutal classic.
Van der Poel, who defeated Pogacar at Milan San Remo last week, will again be among the main Paris-Roubaix contenders this year.
Organizers of the race have added new sections of cobbles to the course. They will be on the road leading to the infamous Trouée d'Arenberg, a long, straight section of cobbles particularly tough to handle.
'By introducing them here, it provides us with a sequence of five sectors without virtually any tarmac,' Gouvenou said.
This year's 259.2-kilometer (161-mile) men's race between Compiègne and Roubaix features 30 cobbled sections covering a total of 55.3 kilometers (34 miles).
Organizers also said they had found an alternative to the controversial switchback that was installed for security reasons last year, to reduce the speed of riders leading into the Trouée d'Arenberg. The sharp U-turn had been criticized by some riders, including van der Poel.
The route of the 148.5-kilometer (92-mile) women's race has not been modified. The women's peloton will tackle the last 17 sections of the men's race, totaling 29.2 km (18 miles) of cobbles.