Paris-Roubaix: Wout Limps In, And Who Is the Next Mystery Guest?

It’s my annual “I’ve Hit the Cobbles Blogging Wall” Paris-Roubaix preview!! Are you excited now? I sure am, even though my excitement for Paris-Roubaix always feels less intellectual and more like a nerve reaction. I blog and tweet and obsess over the Belgian events starting in late February, and lionize the Ronde van Vlaanderen to the point where when it ends, it feels kind of empty. Even the final few KM, once the leaders are off the Paterberg, it’s like a miniature existential crisis. Then we know who won, and like every race the shouting at the line slowly gives way to the crowds of people going home, leaving behind some trash and half-dismantled scaffolding and the memory of the season that won’t be back for 11 months.

But by the next morning the circus reopens just a bit to the south, for a finale that is as grand as every act that came before it, and the effect on me is always a kind of delirium. I don’t even know what is happening. All connection to the races on the other side of the border melt away, and Paris-Roubaix stands alone magnificently. That’s where I am today. I can’t think of much to say about it. I just want to revel in its proximity.

Are There Two Favorites?

Today Wout Van Aert and his Jumbo-Visma mates could be seen reconnoitering the heaviest part of the course, gliding over the most infernal pavé France has to offer, and afterwards he gave an interview to Sporza where he threw a big fat bag of sand all over the expectations for him. Van Aert suggested that both his knee and ribs were still sore from the crash he suffered in Flanders (valpartij is an all time Dutch word), and that he didn’t feel good on the bike today, hoping that his fitness will elevate him Sunday nonetheless.

Not great for the people who bet on him at +350 to win, whereas Mathieu van der Poel is at something like +410 or +450, depending on who you ask (in some cases co-favorite with Van Aert). His dad Adrie points out in the same Sporza piece that anyone who picks Wout over his son is a terrible, terrible person. As the Dude once said, “you’re not wrong, Walter….”

Mads Pedersen comes in the third favorite at +750 and Filippo Ganna at +1500. After that, it’s anyone’s guess.