The facts: he punctured three times, rode a neutral service bike for five kilometres, and despite all that, appeared for long stretches of his second Paris-Roubaix as if he was going to win the only Monument to elude him. Instead, Poga\u010dar was second for the second successive year, a gracious loser behind Wout Van Aert. He was just a sprint away.<\/p>\n
It means another year of obsession, of reconnaissance, of winter bulking. As Tom Boonen said in 2004, before he had won any of his four races here: \u201cWhen I\u2019m standing in the showers in Roubaix, I\u2019m actually starting my preparations for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Tadej Poga\u010dar in the famous Roubaix showers after Sunday\u2019s race. (Anne-Christine Poujoulat \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
But these moments recall a speech given by Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell after the 2023 NFL season, words that already seem destined to rattle around history for decades. \u201cI told our guys, this may have been our only shot,\u201d he said after missing out on the Super Bowl. \u201cDo I think that? No. Do I believe that? No. But I know how hard it is to get here. That\u2019s the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar may never be in this position again. He is the best rider of his generation, perhaps of any generation, but Paris-Roubaix is one of the very few races that he has seriously attempted and lost. The other gaps in his palmares \u2014 the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and Olympic gold \u2014 feel more like a matter of time and interest than inability.<\/p>\n
Instead, this is a rare race that he cannot rely on talent alone to win. And make no mistake, over the past two years, he has done the work as well, riding the key cobbled sectors repeatedly over the winter with lieutenant Florian Vermeersch. He went hard enough to crash in one of them, on the Haveluy sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so muddy that it wasn\u2019t even cobbles, we were basically riding on the field,\u201d he said pre-race. \u201cI crashed twice, luckily, there was so much mud on the cobbles I wasn\u2019t hurt\u201d.<\/p>\n
This is what he is prepared to risk for Roubaix, and that is laudable for a four-time Tour de France winner, but it underscores another reality. Clearly, he possesses the talent, clearly he has done the work, and that means another thing must be needed \u2014 the past two years have shown he requires fortune as well. At Paris-Roubaix, the opportunities of tomorrow are never guaranteed.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\n Tadej Poga\u010dar tried several times to drop Wout Van Aert on the cobbled sectors but was unable to do so. (Dirk Waem \/ Belga \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar was not lucky this race \u2014 nobody who punctures three times can say that \u2014 but he had luck. His biggest rival, Mathieu van der Poel, winner of the past three editions of Paris-Roubaix, was all but taken out of the race after suffering two flat tires on the Arenberg, losing two minutes he would never quite gain back. In closing to just 20 seconds away over the next 100km, there is no doubt that he was one of the strongest riders in the race.<\/p>\n
And so Poga\u010dar had his opportunity. He put himself into a two-man leading group without his biggest threat \u2014 and still he could not do it.<\/p>\n
This is no criticism of Poga\u010dar, who rode his race almost perfectly, especially in getting back to the bunch after his own punctures, while he was unfortunate to lose Vermeersch to his own crash on the Arenberg. He may have opened up his sprint slightly early, but that was not when he lost the race. Van Aert was far superior in the velodrome.<\/p>\n
Instead, it was in his inability to shake the Belgian off his back wheel across the final cobbled sectors. Who knows whether he might have found that extra five per cent had he not needed to chase back post-puncture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I tried to counter-attack, (Van Aert) managed to follow me,\u201d said Poga\u010dar post-race. \u201cHe was very strong, and after that, a sprint was 99 per cent impossible. When I launched, I felt like my legs were made of spaghetti.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_2073-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n A dust-covered Poga\u010dar speaks to the press after Sunday\u2019s race (Jacob Whitehead\/The Athletic)<\/p>\n
Racing Paris-Roubaix has a major impact on the scheduling of his season. Preparing properly means he has to sacrifice the high-mountain-climbing shape that he would need to ride the Giro d\u2019Italia, for example, which he would likely skip for a third year in a row if he competes in Roubaix next year.<\/p>\n
That race, in many ways, has far more predictable outcomes, its quality levelling itself out over a three-week slog, rather than being settled in the flying mud of six hours in northern France. Poga\u010dar\u2019s ability means he could be in the fight again, but when, and to what extent?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll be back, maybe not next year, but I still have a few years left in my career and I\u2019m going to try my luck again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar does not need to win Paris-Roubaix to define his career, but the fact is that Van Aert did, and that matters. Poga\u010dar has the opportunity to join Eddy Merckx, Rik Van Looy, and Roger De Vlaeminck as the only men to win all five Monuments, and despite the beckoning of history, you get the sense that Poga\u010dar is riding Paris-Roubaix for himself rather than to meet that expectation, as he should.<\/p>\n
An hour after the end of the race, he sat cross-legged on the grass in front of the podium in a group of seven \u2014 his parents, Mirko and Marjeta, his girlfriend and fellow professional Urska Zigart, friend and Formula 1 driver Ollie Bearman, plus Bearman\u2019s own girlfriend and brother.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_2076-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\n The Poga\u010dar post-race \u2018picnic\u2019 in the centre of the velodrome (Jacob Whitehead\/The Athletic)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important in playing games to learn how to win and how to lose,\u201d Marjeta told The Athletic during the Tour de France last summer. \u201cHe learned this also. He wasn\u2019t angry as long as he\u2019d done his best.\u201d<\/p>\n
They resemble any group taking a picnic in the spring sunshine, his mother holding court, Bearman asking questions, Poga\u010dar leaning back contentedly on his wrists. For 10 minutes, the greatest rider of his era is mortal. Like all mortal men, he knows being back here tomorrow is not guaranteed, but that will not stop him from enjoying today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar said he would analyse the race \u201cwhen the dust settles\u201d and for once, he is being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,9045,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-601517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-global-sports","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}