Van Aert sees Van der Poel leaving as he is DJing at the Carrefour de l’Arbre. ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT (AFP)
“Allez Poupou” (Come on, Poulidor). A fan wrote it on a piece of cardboard and shows it from the Graben from Van der Poel, who, balancing until the last second without touching the brakes, spins the bike around the corners like a rally driver, flies past him. Page, at more than 60 an hour, and he certainly doesn’t even see it, a fleeting spark, and when he sees it he certainly doesn’t understand, he thinks it’s not going with him, although Poupou, whom he called Pappy and was touched by his rough hugs, the tenderness of a lumberjack, it was his grandfather. You can smell and hear the Roubaix Velodrome right next door. A precise hand holds the bell, ready to shear as Van der Poel’s shadow passes. Victory awaits you. The queen of the classics loves him. The Hell of the North, the Paris-Roubaix monument, is his year celebrating its 120th edition, he wins it, and it is the fourth monument of his career, as many as God Pogacar, with number 21, the same number , with which he won the third Milan-San Remo three weeks ago. The first two, the 2020 and 2022 Tour of Flanders, had different numbers. He has two left, Liege and Lombardy, to take on Merckx, De Vlaeminck and Van Looy, the only ones to have won all five monuments.
It’s the golden age of cycling in the 21st century. Heaven is responding to the pleas of all the fans who have suffered so much with their beloved sport while also sending a group of prodigies – Pogacar, Van Aert, Van der Poel, Evenepoel, Vingegaard… – and the defeat of one magnifies the neighbor and them are all great. And this week Van der Poel is the biggest. Grace is with him. Every race is a work of art.
It’s the good star. Beautiful and relaxed, dancing lightly on the pavés, without grimacing, serene, airy, as if the dust that she kicks up on the stones when she accelerates with a force that the others, all Van Aert, find it difficult to resist, actually a heavenly cloud. She is the great beauty, on the bike, when she attacks, when she rides, pedals, hands on the handlebars, when she turns her back into a horseshoe arch, as perfect as the curve to the Mons en Pévèle cemetery, Wind, and a slope inviting attack, and his call returns fiercely, and Van Aert, always glued to his wheel, follows him. Van der Poel, say those who examine him every day, those who compare his performances and his results in all the races, is no longer the naive kid who attacked for pleasure, just to have fun and it seemed like would he but by action see his desire being rewarded. . Attack now to kill. Calculate, they accuse him of. It’s not what it was. Maybe they exaggerate. Van der Poel is what he was, he hasn’t lost his ability to attack where nobody expects, he shows up where nobody knows how and he attacks again leaving Mons in Pévèle Kickback on the asphalt, no less, no On the rocks, 44 from the finish line, where everyone – there are all seven, the magnificent seven for the elders, the seven samurai for the most pedantic, and they are not bad: there is sword club, the only one of all who has already won the Roubaix; there is Pippo Ganna, the record holder of the hour, like Moser, the Olympic champion on the track, the second in San Remo, the unstoppable cyclist from here to nothing as soon as he doesn’t tremble on the cobblestones; there is Mads Pedersen, the only world champion, as indicated by the rainbow on his sleeve; There’s Küng, a Swiss who went to Cancellara and still believes in him, and there’s Philipsen, the key man, a frenetic sprinter from Alpecin, a partner and accomplice of Van der Poel – they’re trying to catch their breath, except for him , who makes her suffer again . And Van Aert is always the first to get behind the wheel. There are seven, but only two matter to the world. Fate only plays with two as they enter the Carrefour de l’Arbre 17 kilometers from the velodrome, section number 4 (there are 29.54 kilometers in total and they are numbered in descending order, like the 22 corners of Alpe d ‘Huez), the crossing of the tree, the tavern, the oysters on Sunday, the giants with the handkerchief on May 1st.
Sixty years after his grandfather, Poulidor’s grandson is Anquetil, who tortures Wout van Aert, makes him the Poulidor of the 21st century and fate agrees with him, he despises Van Aert and laughs at his latest generation of tires that have a puncture at the exit of the Carrefour de l’Arbre. Both kicked in the rear as if to deceive, as if to suggest they needed a few minutes’ rest in a race that caught fire 100 kilometers from the finish line between Haveluy and Waller, sector number 20, where the big coal mining well and coal already given up. Everyone prepares to take the lead, thinking of the already arriving Arenberg and Van Aert with his jumbos and their electronic inflation and deflation systems and accelerating at will into the lead and accelerating further and leaving. And only the most attentive, the strongest, Van der Poel, Degenkolb, his partner Laporte, Philipsen follow him. From then on, not a second’s rest, full throttle. They devour the almost 260 kilometers in less than five and a half hours and a final average of the winner of 46.841 kilometers per hour, the highest in history.
All destinations intersect at Tree Crossing. Surprisingly from behind, Van der Poel overtakes his friend Philipsen at 60 per hour, balancing on the right-hand side. Both, on the old and rounded pavés, a rotten dentition. Degenkolb finds space and security at the Graben, on the meadow. When VdP decided to attack between Philipsen and the Graben, his partner unlocked, VdP lost his balance, Degenkolb fell, Van Aert took advantage of the confusion and accelerated to the left and left. Only VdP reaches him, overtakes him and gets him behind the wheel. And there, when it hits the tarmac, right there, Van Aert has a puncture. Poulidor’s bad luck, more and more noticeable because Anquetil seemed touched by grace and never suffered, is transmitted to the great Belgian who, at the age of 28, won only one monument, that of San Remo, and in the stones, the love of your country has always stumbled. On the velodrome, Philipsen beat him in the sprint for second place. In Flanders he was once second and once fourth; in Roubaix, once second and once third, and finished second at a World Cup and even at the Tokyo Games.
“I’ve always said that to win in Paris-Roubaix you have to have good legs and a lot of luck. I had both,” says the unfortunate Frenchman’s grandson, Van der Poel, a 28-year-old Dutchman who accepts sincerely and without sympathy the hand of congratulations extended to him by the sad Belgian. “If it weren’t for Van Aert’s puncture, the two of us would have arrived at the velodrome together and… I love Roubaix.”
Follow EL PAÍS Deportes on Facebook and Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.