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

By Canadian Press on March 26, 2025.

PARIS (AP) — 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 gruelling cycling classic over cobblestones held in northern France next month, his team said on Wednesday.

It was initially planned for Pogacar 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.

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.

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.

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 add new sections of paving stones 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,” said race director Thierry Gouvenou.

This year’s 259.2-kilometre (161-mile) men’s race between Compiègne and Roubaix features 30 cobbled sections covering a total of 55.3 kilometres (34 miles).

Organizers also said they had found an alternative to the controversial chicane 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, totalling 29.2 km (18 miles) of cobbles.

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More AP cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling

Samuel Petrequin, The Associated Press