Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel are modern cycling’s pre-eminent champions. Evenly matched but different in riding style and physiology, their diverse gifts intersect at a precious handful of historic races each spring. With Pogačar triumphant already at Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, the eyes of the cycling world will be riveted this Sunday to Paris-Roubaix, a race known, ominously, as The Hell of the North. Both riders can make history: Van der Poel by claiming a record-equalling fourth victory, and Pogačar by completing a full set of victories in cycling’s five Monuments.
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Sport thrives on great rivalries and era-defining clashes between two pre-eminent talents. Their confrontations become legendary, searing themselves into the collective consciousness in a series of unforgettable “where were you when” moments. Ali vs Frazier. Senna vs Prost. Messi vs Ronaldo. Take your pick.
It’s unsurprising that professional cycling’s rich history should boast so many legendary personal contests. Coppi vs Bartali, Anquetil vs Poulidor, Moser vs Saronni, LeMond vs Hinault, Boonen vs Cancellara… the list is seemingly endless. Bike racing, an innate test of endurance in which fields whittle down until only the strongest remain, is an obvious breeding ground.
Now, in this golden age for the sport – an exhilarating era of intense racing, explosive attacks, and relentlessly high speeds known to fans and riders alike simply as “modern cycling” – a new and unusual rivalry has flourished, based on the overlapping talents of a Grand Tour grandee and a Classics king: Tadej Pogačar vs Mathieu Van der Poel.
Setting the scene
Sunday’s 123rd edition of Paris-Roubaix (or, to use its new monicker, Paris-Roubaix Hauts-de-France), arguably the most feared race in professional cycling, will stage the latest confrontation between Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech). Following the former’s 2026 victories at Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, both at Van der Poel’s expense (the Dutchman finished eighth and second, respectively), the stakes could not be higher.
Pogačar, the reigning world champion, is widely considered the GOAT in waiting. His supreme versatility and insatiable appetite for victory have made him a fan favourite. Rarely do Tour de France winners risk their glorious summers amid the muck and bullets of the Spring Classics, but Pogačar simply can’t get enough.
Van der Poel is at once similar to Pogačar – explosive, instinctive, able to win from long range or from a reduced group sprint – and distinctly different. Taller and heavier than the Slovenian, more comfortable on the cobbles than the climbs, the Dutchman combines a piston-like pedal stroke with intuitive bike handling.
For all their accomplishments (the palmarès of both include World Championships and multiple victories in the sport’s most prestigious races), both are modest, humble and approachable. Admired by their colleagues and adored by the cycling public, they are standard bearers for the men’s peloton.
Monument men
The battlegrounds of the Pogačar-Van der Poel rivalry matter. Bike racing is so intimately linked to physiology that very few races allow their distinct talents to intersect.
In reality, even among the five Monuments, cycling’s near-mythical quintet of savage and beautiful one-day races, only Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix offer a playing field level enough for these two to truly trade blows.
Pogačar seems even to have made the Tour of Flanders, a race Van der Poel has won three times, his own by launching unanswerable attacks on the cobbled Oude Kwaremont.
Last year’s Paris-Roubaix, where Pogačar was a sensational late addition to an already talent-packed start list, confirmed The Hell of the North as a surprisingly appropriate stage for the display of the 27-year-old’s seemingly limitless talent and a new frontier for his rivalry with Van der Poel.
The contest lived up to the hype. Pogačar forced the decisive split on the fifteenth of 30 pavé sectors, but slid off with around 40km remaining, leaving Van der Poel to ride alone to a magnificent third consecutive victory. Still, second place on debut for Pogačar was hardly disastrous – even for a rider who has made the top step of the podium his own.
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North Stars
Paris-Roubaix is a race that almost defies description, one so brutal and unrelenting that, were it conceived as a new addition to the calendar, no race organiser or governing body would agree to such an event. It is a glorious anachronism, perhaps similar in character to the Grand National or Monaco Grand Prix, too deeply woven into the sport’s fabric to unpick.
It was conceived by two local businessmen who needed an attraction for their recently-erected velodrome. The pair reached out to Le Vélo, then France’s only sports daily (not to be confused with L'Auto, now L'Équipe, which founded the Tour de France), who, informed by the success of the Bordeaux-Paris cycle race, agreed to help. The first edition was held in 1896. The rest is a 130-year history that few other sporting events can match.
Paris-Roubaix's signature is its pavé sectors – 30 of them again in this year's men's race – which range from the five-star savagery of the Carrefour de l'Arbre to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them one-star interludes at Templeuve (L’Épinette) and Roubaix town centre. Typically, the sectors are rocky farm roads, more suited to a tractor than a bicycle. The toll exacted upon the riders is immense.
The race starts in Compiègne but often begins in earnest on the legendary Trouée d'Arenberg: a dead straight, 2.3km sector that cuts an arrow-like path through the heart of the forbidding Arenberg Forest. Lined either side on race day by fans for whom the description “passionate” is a gross understatement, it is the essence of this brutal and beautiful event. Unfortunately for the riders, a further 18 sectors remain before they enter the outdoor velodrome at Roubaix.
Two of those carry the five-star rating - Mons-en-Pévèle and the Carrefour de l'Arbre – but none can be taken for granted. To relax concentration for even a moment is to invite disaster. Such unnerving challenges are grist to Van der Poel’s mill, however. Not for nothing is he the eight-time and reigning cyclo-cross world champion.
His understanding of space, time and the machine beneath him often borders on telepathic. Arguably, the most impressive aspect of his victory last year was the manner in which he calmly steered around Pogačar when the world champion crashed in front of him.
Pogačar is no mean bike handler either but his uncontainable enthusiasm – the same quality that inspires his long-range attacks and even sporadic involvement in bunch sprints – has sometimes proved his undoing (see last year’s Paris-Roubaix and Strade Bianche, or his fall on the Col de Spandelles at the 2022 Tour de France that inspired Jonas Vingegaard’s now famous pause while his rival recovered).
Viewed through the prism of the Pogačar-Van der Poel rivalry, however, the most important feature of Paris-Roubaix is its topography. It is almost entirely flat by bike racing standards. For once, Van der Poel need only battle Pogačar, not Pogačar plus gravity. The nine additional kilograms carried by his 184 centimetre frame can be focussed entirely on forward momentum.
New chapter, same script?
Already, 2026 has proved itself the cycling season that keeps giving. The Pogačar-Van der Poel rivalry has been at the heart of its most enthralling engagements. Just when you think this era of modern cycling cannot become any more exciting, the strongest riders find a way to up the ante.
Milan-San Remo, held only three weeks ago but now seeming to belong to another lifetime, provided sufficient excitement in its final 30km to fill a season. Last weekend’s Tour of Flanders raised the bar still higher, thanks in large part to the impressive debut of Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), but even the double Olympic champion was forced into a supporting role by Pogačar and Van der Poel.
Now, as if another showdown at Paris-Roubaix, 12 months on from last year’s one-two finish, wasn’t enough, the great rivals of spring will race with the hand of history on their shoulders.
Pogačar, whose latest winning streak in Monuments began at the 2025 Liège–Bastogne–Liège, can complete the set. Van der Poel, meanwhile, can equal cycling immortals Roger De Vlaeminck and Tom Boonen by placing a fourth cobblestone trophy on his mantlepiece.
However intense the racing, the pair seem certain to remain friends afterwards. Theirs is a good-natured rivalry. After winning the Amstel Gold Race in 2023, Pogačar revealed that Van der Poel had messaged him three days earlier, telling him where to attack. In an interview given shortly after his defeat last week in Flanders, a smiling Van der Poel told reporters, “In the end, it’s very simple. He was stronger.”
Modern cycling can boast an abundance of great champions (Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Wout Van Aert, Primoz Roglic, to name only a few), with a seemingly endless supply of hungry young talents eager to replace them (Isaac Del Toro, Matthew Brennan, Giulio Pellizzari and Paul Seixas).
In 2026, however, the unlikely Pogačar-Van der Poel rivalry seems destined to remain the one we can’t stop talking about. Paris-Roubaix, never less than captivating, is certain to provide a new and compelling chapter.
