The cobblestones, the unpredictability, the hardness, the spectacle. Paris-Roubaix is already here and, as usual, with a list of truly luxurious participants. Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen, Filippo Ganna, Dylan van Baarle, Matej Mohoric… Many applicants in a ‘Hell of the North’ with news on their journey. The third Monument of the season promises emotions.
Route and profile: 256.6 kilometers between Compiegne and Roubaix
The menu of the edition number 120 of the Paris-Roubaix, of 256.6 kilometers and 29 sectors of pavés, will offer another hearty helping of drama, beginning with the traditional first contact with the cobbles at Troisvilles, just under 100 kilometers later from the exit in Compiègne.
A little later, the route changes made this year will appear in the antechamber of the Trouée d’Arenberg, with the return of the Haspres sector (km 139.6), unprecedented since spring 2004. From there, it is a long and hard road to the classic “five-star” sectors that will separate the wheat from the chaff, namely the Trouée d’Arenberg (km 161.3), Mons-en-Pévèle (km 208) and the Carrefour de l’Arbre (239.5 km).
Favorites: duel Van Aert – Van der Poel
Mathieu van der Poel, winner in Milan-San Remo, and Wout van Aert, despite arriving with “rib and knee problems” after his fall in Flanders, They are the big favorites to win the Paris-Roubaix 2023. After them, the list of applicants is very wide: Dylan van Baarle, Mads Pedersen, Filippo Ganna, Matej Mohoric, Kasper Asgreen… The great Spanish trick will be Iván García Cortina, in good shape within a renewed Movistar in the classic season. With him, there will also be Oier Lazkano, brilliant in Through Flanders.
