The China Mail - King of the cobbles van der Poel wins third straight Paris-Roubaix

At the line, Dutch rider Van der Poel jumped from his bike and hoisted it aloft, roaring at the packed ranks of fans in the Roubaix velodrome.

Van der Poel became the first rider since Italy's Francesco Moser in 1980 to win three consecutive editions of Paris-Roubaix.

"It means a lot. I was really suffering," said Van der Poel after hugging his friend and rival Pogacar.

"When he made that mistake in the corner, I had to go for it," he said of the key move.

It was in some ways a moral victory for Grand Tour specialist Pogacar, unsuited to the bone-shaking 259km course where he was pitted against the physically larger specialists.

Dane Mads Pedersen was third in a three-way sprint for the final podium slot with Belgian Wout van Aert fourth.

Once cycling's toughest race had been whittled down to the two stars, Pogacar took a cobbled corner too fast, flying into fencing, falling off and losing his chain.

"I was following a motorbike and didn't see the corner until too late," said the Slovenian.

After dusting himself down the plucky 26-year-old was 20 seconds off the pace and 30-year-old Van der Poel had a definitive upper hand.

"My brake was rubbing and it got into my mind and I cracked," said Pogacar.

Van der Poel had told reporters he was off form before putting in a sublime performance without a single error.

He led the 175 contenders for 'The Queen of the Classics' out of Compiegne for a 259.2km charge toward the Roubaix Velodrome under low grey skies.

Ahead of them was the challenge that makes this race so feared, 30 cobbled sections rated between 1-5 stars each, depending on their state of disrepair and difficulty.

Bone dry, with billowing clouds of dust during Saturday's women's race, overnight showers rendered the notorious rough-hewn roads slippery in the longer men's event.

Pogacar rode in the front ten riders of the race from the flag and it was a series of attacks by him that broke the race open.

On a remote and windy mining path in the middle of sodden fields along the Franco-Belgian border, Pogacar made his first trademark acceleration more than 100km from Roubaix's finish line.

Three or four attempts later, he dropped the others. Dark horse Mads Pedersen punctured, ruining his race, while Van der Poel and Philipsen both soon caught the Slovenian maverick.

Van Aert started poorly entering an opening cobbled section towards the back of the peloton and emerging two minutes behind.

The wiry all-rounder Pogacar won the Tour, Giro d'Italia and world championships in 2024, while Van der Poel, who is 10 kilos heavier, is the most powerful one-day racer, and has multiple mountain bike and cyclocross titles.

Both men now have eight wins in the long one-day races known as Monuments.

H.Ng--ThChM