"This means the world to me."

Good morning,

These are today's quotes and interviews worth your time.

Stood out to me today: "You grow up watching this race, you hear all the stories. It's the only one where there's a bit of prestige attached to just finishing — even if you're outside the time limit."

¡Vamos!

🎤 INTERESTING INTERVIEWS

"This means the world to me."

Wout van Aert on winning Paris-Roubaix

The emotion at the finish line said everything before he even spoke. Wout van Aert pointed to the sky before the tears came — a gesture eight years in the making. As he told Het Nieuwsblad, the win was bound to the loss that preceded it: "This means the world to me. This has been a goal since 2018, when I first rode this race. During that race, I lost my teammate Michael Goolaerts, and since that day it's been my goal to come back and point my finger at the sky. This victory is for Michael, but certainly for his family, the staff, and all my teammates from my previous team. That was such a heavy day, and since then I've had a lot of bad luck in this race, but I kept believing. Now the reward is here."

He called the win a "life's work." And the road there was not straightforward. He punctured twice, once badly enough that he thought his race was finished: "The second time I thought my race was over. I had an incredibly hard time getting back. It took a really long time before we were at the front again. That was the hardest moment of the race for me." He turned the switch back on, made it to the front alongside Tadej Pogačar, and they rode away together.

On the sprint itself, every detail was rehearsed: "I had ridden that sprint so many times in my preparation and in my dreams. I knew exactly what to do. The hardest thing, for years, was just getting to the Vélodrome." He did. And then: "I sometimes lost faith. But the next day I got up and kept fighting. And then to win a one-on-one sprint against the world champion, such a great rider... There's little better than that."

"I sprinted with spaghetti legs."

Tadej Pogačar on a race where everything went wrong at once

The press conference image was striking: the world champion, hollow-eyed, dried mud still on his face, answering a question about whether he was tired with a sheepish shrug. As journalist Joeri De Knop reported for HLN, Tadej Pogačar had burned through his reserves long before the Vélodrome.

The damage started early. A rear puncture had been quietly sealed by the sealant in his tire, something nobody knew at the time. Then the rear went completely flat. He got a Shimano neutral service bike, which felt wrong, and had to wait six kilometers before his team car could reach him with his own bike. "Chaotic all over the place," he called it. Nils Politt described what the chase cost: "I had to give everything to get Tadej back to the front."

He made it back. Through the Arenberg Forest, he navigated near-misses — Tibor Del Grosso puncturing just ahead of him on the roughest cobbles, and Florian Vermeersch crashing. Then a third puncture, sector 16, twelve seconds lost. "I fired bullets where it wasn't necessary," he said. By the time it was just him and Van Aert, his tank was almost empty. "Wherever I tried to drop Wout from Mons-en-Pévèle, he stayed glued to my wheel. I could feel he was incredibly strong, and my legs were not the greatest anymore." The sprint was never really a sprint. "I did my best, but sprinted with... uh... spaghetti legs. There was no way against Wout. It was really exciting to watch how fast he went. Second again. A shame. But I enjoyed a beautiful, aggressive race. All in all, it was a good day in Hell."

On whether he'll be back: no hesitation. "Absolutely. Maybe not next year, but one day. I still have a few years in my career. This was only my second try here. Let's give it the time."

"I've never really been able to ride top finales here."

Jasper Stuyven on a first Paris-Roubaix podium

Jasper Stuyven has the results to prove he belongs at Paris-Roubaix. The podium just kept escaping him. As he told HLN, the problem was always bad luck: "I've missed a lot of good chances here through bad luck. I love this race, but I've never really been able to ride top finales here."

This time he survived the first major selection at Arenberg with the lead group. Then Pogačar's puncture changed the tempo: "Pogi's puncture saved me. He was pushing me past my limit." When both Van Aert and Pogačar eventually came back and rode away, Stuyven couldn't follow: "This morning I told myself that if one of those big guns attacked, I'd try to go with them. It didn't work." He settled into the chase group, but didn't play it safe. His team car told him the others were fading. So he attacked: "It was on instinct, but the moment I went, I immediately regretted it. It really hurt."

The team car kept him going when doubt crept in. "From the car they were shouting at me to keep believing, which gave me more confidence. I've missed the podium here so many times and didn't want to let that happen again." He arrived at the Vélodrome alone and took third. Soudal Quick-Step CEO Jurgen Foré had called it a year earlier: "A year ago I spoke with Jasper about his role in his team. He burned with ambition to get a leadership role in races like today. He proved he deserves it."

"It's just like a war basically going into the cobbled sections."

Franziska Koch on winning Paris-Roubaix Femmes

Franziska Koch had been dreaming about this race since she rode its inaugural edition in 2021. Five years later, she won it. As she told CyclingUpToDate, the result was built on a calculated, aggressive approach from the gun: "We knew our positioning in the beginning is really key. It's just like a war basically going into the cobbled sections and we were fully committed to investing early in the race."

She stayed clean through every major split, eventually landing in the front group with Blanka Vas, and Visma | Lease a Bike pair Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. Being outnumbered didn't unsettle her: "Having two riders of the same team is on one hand a challenge, on the other hand a benefit a little bit, because the work is not necessarily on you. I tried to get rid of them a little bit, but in the end I had to gamble on a sprint and it worked out."

In the Vélodrome, the math looked unfavorable. Vos had been on her wheel through the final kilometers and was heavily favored. Koch opened the sprint, felt Vos coming: "I knew it when I threw my bike. I could feel her coming at the end of the corner and I was a bit pissed because she got more downhill than me. But I just thought 'now I'm so close I have to win', there was no option." She found one more kick and won it.

"I don't know what to feel yet."

Marianne Vos on a Paris-Roubaix loss she'll need time to process

Marianne Vos exited the Vélodrome over an hour after the finish and still hadn't landed. "I don't know what to feel yet," she said. As Patrick Fletcher reported for CyclingNews, the loss came wrapped in layers. A race she'd have loved to win before her career was done. A two-on-one tactical advantage that didn't convert. And the death of her father the week before.

On the racing: Visma | Lease a Bike chose not to attack Koch with combination punches, saving the legs for a sprint Vos was expected to win. It didn't work. "It was a conscious decision not to do that, to save the legs for the sprint. But in the end, it was still not enough." She praised Pauline Ferrand-Prévot's commitment fully: "That was Pauline's own decision. She was really all-in for me. I'm very thankful for her dedication and her help." And she was quick to point the spotlight where it belonged: "Koch attacked herself on the last uphill part, and she dropped Pauline there, and then she did an amazing finish. We saw a fantastic bike rider today winning Paris-Roubaix."

The undercurrent of the week never disappeared. Her father died days before the race, and she was uncertain whether she'd line up at all. "We miss him, calling him, having small WhatsApp messages, or a picture, or whatever. But in a way… you just try and focus on what you have to do." She gave everything. It just wasn't her day. "It's somewhere in between, which is a strange feeling. Maybe one day it will settle closer to one or the other. I don't know what to feel yet."

"Sometimes with the wind, when you look back, it just flies out."

Laurence Pithie on a day that fell apart piece by piece

For a short stretch, Laurence Pithie was exactly where he needed to be. In the early move that shaped the race, floating over the cobbles, the Vélodrome not yet a fantasy. Then Paris-Roubaix started collecting its debts. As he told CyclingNews, still shell-shocked outside the Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe bus: "I don't really know what to say, to be honest."

A puncture with 78km to go started the collapse. He worked back with teammate Jordi Meeus and Van Aert. Then, on sector 12, a contact lens blew out of his eye. "Sometimes with the wind, when you look back, it just flies out. One side of the vision is clear and the other side is blurry." He crashed hard on the next sector, Mons-en-Pévèle: "I still felt pretty good at that point. I was just on the back of that group, hoping Van der Poel would do the work to bring us back. I still had hope to be in the mix, but yeah, it was game over."

Then, a group behind, came the final insult. A roadside spectator. "I hit a spectator on the side, coming out of a corner. I mean, the spectator was pretty close. We were going super fast, and yeah, I just ploughed straight into them." He rolled home 26th. "I'll be back next year. I still love this race. I didn't even make it to the cobbles last year because of the crash, so this will only fuel the fire for next year."

"I find it very stupid of myself."

Christoph Roodhooft on the pedal mistake that cost Mathieu van der Poel

Christoph Roodhooft, Sports Director at Alpecin-Premier Tech, spent the afternoon in a car watching the race fall apart through a cascade of bad timing. He gave a full account to In De Leiderstrui.

The sequence began before the Forest of Arenberg, when a crash from another team blocked the road, leaving his car stationary for over a minute with the peloton closing behind them. Then Mathieu van der Poel punctured. Teammate Jasper Philipsen, seeing no team car in sight, handed over his bike. The problem: different pedals. Prototype Shimano pedals, being tested by a handful of riders at the team, were on Philipsen's bike. Not Van der Poel's. He couldn't clip in properly and the momentum was gone before his own bike was recovered. Then he punctured again on that bike.

Roodhooft didn't deflect: "I find it very stupid of myself. I can't understand now that I didn't think of that. It's more unlikely than winning the lottery that it all came together like this." He acknowledged Van der Poel had tested the prototype pedals briefly earlier in the season but had switched back for comfort across different training locations. "He had them on his bike for two days, but then there's a bike in Belgium with those pedals and one in Spain with different ones. That's simply the reason: to not make things too complicated for himself."

On how Van der Poel reacted in the bus, Roodhooft did not sugarcoat it: "When you arrive at a race in this condition, having won the last three races, and you have to let the chance to fight for victory slip away like this? That's enough to make you never want to ride a bike again."

"We think our Michael rode with Wout today."

The parents of Michael Goolaerts on Van Aert's tribute

His father Staf normally doesn't watch. "Since Michael died, I don't usually watch the race. It causes too much pain. Especially because these were his races. I try to keep some distance from it." But on Sunday, driving back from visiting his mother, he heard on the radio that Van Aert had a chance to win. He pulled into the driveway and listened. "I also heard Wout's first interview there. Tears running down my cheeks."

Inside, his wife Marianne had been watching on television. They heard the interview again, this time in Dutch. As father Staf told Sporza: "Wout has always said he would win the flowers in Roubaix for Michael. After years of bad luck, we had started to give up hope a little. It seemed like it just wasn't meant to be for Wout. Flat tires, crashes, and then Pogačar also had his sights set on that race. Try beating him. But on Sunday, everything came together."

The contact between the families never stopped. "I regularly send a message to those guys. To Wout too — he always responds within a few minutes. But I don't like to bother him. And I don't want to confront him with our grief. Because if you have to ride around with that thought..." Van Aert, he said, is always welcome at their home: the promised bouquet of flowers will find its place beside the urn, which is shaped like a cobblestone. On the day Michael would have turned 30, Van Aert arrived with flowers too.

On being remembered, Staf found the right word: "It's heavy, but at the same time it's a comfort that people still think about Michael. We know what Michael would say to Wout right now. "Mercikes"  ["thanks"] . That was his word. To everyone, mercikes."

🏆 THE SERGE BAGUET AWARD

"I know that I pretty quickly gave an interview with you, with Sporza, in Dutch — because I was afraid my house would otherwise be set on fire."

— Mathew Hayman, Sporza, Sports Director at Jayco AlUla, ten years on, reflecting on why he quickly gave a Dutch-language interview after upsetting Tom Boonen's bid for a record fifth Paris-Roubaix victory.

Wonder what The Serge Baguet Award is all about? Check it out here.

💬 QUICK QUOTES

"It was never the intention for me to take Jasper's bike, but I think he wasn't having a good day and that's why he gave it to me. I tried to get out of the Arenberg sector, but that was impossible. Tibor gave me a wheel and I took my own bike back, but then I got another puncture. So I knew my race was over." — Mathieu van der Poel, Het Nieuwsblad, reflecting after Paris-Roubaix on the chaos in the Forest of Arenberg.

"This race gives and this race takes. Today luck was not on our side in Paris-Roubaix. Crashed hard after a puncture on Arenberg and was forced to abandon." — Florian Vermeersch, Instagram on his DNF.

"I think he had to sprint with a flat tire. We looked at the bike and it seemed like the rear was soft." — António Morgado, Marca on why Pogačar may have lost the sprint to Van Aert.

"We would have preferred to win ourselves, but I'm happy for him, because he deserves this. We congratulated him, because he is a very good person and a great cyclist. He races with so much flair and class." — Mauro Gianetti, In De Leiderstrui, UAE Team Emirates-XRG team boss, reflecting on Van Aert's victory.

"We always try to make Wout feel that we believe in him. That he is a fantastic champion, and that he doesn't have to win. He's had a lot to absorb in recent years. It came so close so often without the big victories. This one will do him a world of good." — Grischa Niermann, WielerFlits, Sports Director at Visma | Lease a Bike, speaking after Van Aert won Paris-Roubaix.

"It moved me, and he was also very moved. He is a real friend of mine and for him to win today… I'm just as happy as if I had won myself. That's why I'm on this team." — Christophe Laporte, In De Leiderstrui, who finished fifth at Paris-Roubaix, on his friendship with winning teammate Wout van Aert.

"I got my race number on the bus this morning. It's the team's job to check whether they're for Tim or Mick. They were definitely for a Van Dijke, just not the right one. Mick rode with mine and I rode with his. I only found out at the finish that I'd been riding with the wrong number. A few people came up to me and told me." — Tim van Dijke, WielerFlits, who finished sixth at Paris-Roubaix, after discovering post-race that he and his twin brother had ridden the entire day wearing each other's race numbers.

"You grow up watching this race, you hear all the stories. It's the only one where there's a bit of prestige attached to just finishing — even if you're outside the time limit. So for me, more than anything, this is something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life — knowing that I finished Paris-Roubaix." — Alastair Mackellar, In De Leiderstrui, the EF Education-EasyPost rider who finished outside the time limit — the only rider to do so — at Paris-Roubaix.

"To see what she did in Flanders for Demi, she did so much work at the front on the cobblestones. She's a monster, she's really, really strong. I know how strong she was. I was not sure about her sprint, but now I know." — Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Cycling Weekly, who finished third at Paris-Roubaix Femmes, on winner Franziska Koch.

"I felt so bad [in the final 10km] because she [Kopecky] was really trying to get me to pull and I was like, 'I am sorry, but you're so much stronger than me!' I was just suffering so much. Even with three-and-a-half kilometers to go on the drag she was pulling full gas and I was like, 'I'm about to get dropped, this is going to be so embarrassing'." — Megan Jastrab, Cycling Weekly, who finished fifth at Paris-Roubaix Femmes, on the final kilometers she rode alongside Lotte Kopecky.

"My legs were good and there's nothing wrong with my condition. But I was simply too far back. That's on me. I shouldn't be sitting around 15th there, I should be in the top 5. I needed to be up there on so many sectors. On that one, I wasn't. An expensive mistake, yes." — Lotte Kopecky, Sporza, who finished fourth at Paris-Roubaix Femmes, on being caught out of position when the decisive move was made on the Mons-en-Pévèle sector.

"When I heard that Henk had died, I immediately called the team and said I wanted to ride Roubaix for Marianne's sake. To support her and help her through this difficult period. I knew it was a dream of hers to win, and I wanted her to win for her father." — Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, WielerFlits, defending champion who finished third, at the post-race press conference, on choosing to ride Paris-Roubaix Femmes in support of Marianne Vos following the death of Vos's father Henk.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow 👋

Jay