Pogacar lands in hell to prove he's the greatest cyclist of all time.

Barcelona"Paris-Roubaix is a horrible race, but winning it is magnificent," said cyclist Sean Kelly. "I never think I'll go back," said Italian Franco Barellini, although he did return and won. "It's crazy, this race. You work like a horse and don't even have time to pee. You end up with your jersey wet, it's dusty, you end up covered in mud, you slip... it's a real pain," said Dutchman Theo de Rooy in 1985. Here's what he said when asked: !".

That's the magic of Paris-Roubaix. "The hell of the north" is how this one-day race is known, born in 1896, when the mayor of Roubaix, a town on the border between France and Belgium that had become a major industrial center, inaugurated a velodrome. So he organized a race that linked Paris to Roubaix, passing through long stretches of cobblestones and mud. For many, it is the most magical and tough one-day classic. And that's why Tadej Pogacar wants to win it.

This Sunday's Paris-Roubaix will see the eagerly awaited debut of Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) in the "hell of the north", where he should star in an epic duel with the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Deceuninck), champion of both. They are the last two world champions and two ambitious cyclists. Van der Thirty-year-old Poel shines in one-day races, and Pogacar shines... when he wants to. Of the last thirteen editions of the Monuments, the five most prestigious classics on the calendar, they have won eleven: six for the Slovenian and five for the Dutchman. However, Van der Poel can't compete in three-week races like the Tour. The Slovenian can.

At 26, Pogacar seems determined to be the greatest cyclist of all time. Even Eddy Merckx seems to admit it: "Right now, Pogacar is at a higher level than me." The Slovenian has won the Tour de France three times and the Giro d'Italia once. And he knows that to aspire to surpass the feats of the legendary Merckx, he must also shine in all five Monuments. He has already won three of them, namely the Tour of Flanders (2023 and 2025), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2021 and 2024), and the Tour of Lombardy (2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024). Two are yet to be won: Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix. And in fact, he recently narrowly missed out on the Milan-Sanremo, when Van der Poel won a sprint between him and Filippo Ganna. Pogacar returned to the Tour of Flanders a week ago and finished ahead of the Dutchman.

The most anticipated duel

So everyone is eagerly awaiting his Paris-Roubaix debut. In fact, until recently it was unknown if he would even be there, but last February he went to the area with his teammate Tim Wellens. And just a few weeks ago, he was already seen training on the cobblestones that connect Paris and Roubaix. And everyone understood that he had his sights set on winning it for the first time. A race so tough that last year 46 riders dropped out. According to data from his Strava app, Pogačar managed to beat the app's record on three of the five toughest sections of the race during a 212-km training run: Auchy-les-Orchies, Gruson, and, above all, the fearsome three-kilometer Mons-en-Pévèle. A warning to all.

Pogacar is chasing the shadow of a Merckx who is still considered The greatest of all time, having won eleven Grand Tours during his career: five Tours de France, five Giro d'Italia, and one Vuelta a España. The "Cannibal" is going to do so with an aggressive style similar to that of Pogacar. "When he starts, no one can stop him," says the Basque Mikel Landa of him. "He's the best of all time," said the American Lance Armstrong in an interview a few days ago. But as happened to the Belgian decades ago, the Slovenian doesn't make many friends among his rivals due to his somewhat arrogant tone. "I want to be the best of all time," he often says. And to do so, he needs to dethrone Merckx, who was one of two men to win all five Monuments, along with fellow Belgian Roger De Vlaeminck.

Merckx has won nineteen Monuments, while Pogacar has eight at the age of 26, and is already approaching the nine won by Fausto Coppi, Costante Girardengo, and Sean Kelly. Van der Poel has won seven times, and if he wins, he would be only the third man to have three consecutive victories on the cobblestones of northern France, equaling the milestones of Octave Lapize and Italy's Francesco Moser. He would also be close to the only two men to have won it four times, Roger de Vlaeminck and Tom Boonen. No one has beaten him more times. However, the race will not be just a duel between these two men, who have faced each other in twenty one-day races so far, with a record of ten wins each. Other riders, such as Wout van Aert, Jasper Philipsen, and Mads Pedersen, are arriving strong. They want to take center stage in the shadow of the eagerly awaited duel between Pogacar and Van der Poel in Paris-Roubaix. Hotel rooms in the area have been sold out for months now.