Better than perfection: Van Aert's head and heart deny Pogacar at Paris-Roubaix

Why do we watch professional cycling? For many, it’s about witnessing the best achieve something close to perfection, and that’s why Tadej Pogačar’s quest for a clean sweep of the Monuments topped the bill ahead of this edition of Paris-Roubaix.

For others, however, the real draw is seeing humanity in all its rawness and messiness reflected right back at us. And that constituency couldn’t have asked for much more from this latest Sunday in Hell, as Wout van Aert claimed an emotional victory in the Roubaix velodrome after so much hardship over the years and yet more misfortune in this very race.

Not even two untimely punctures and then the company of Pogačar himself in the winning move could deny Van Aert here. The romantics will claim that destiny played a part, but that would be a disservice to the Visma | Lease a Bike rider, whose head and heart were the deciding factors here.

Pogačar confessed afterwards that he had “spaghetti legs” when it came to the two-up sprint in the famous old velodrome, but for most of the rocky road to Roubaix, they looked to be holding up just fine. The Slovenian endured a pair of punctures of his own on Sunday, the first of which provoked a frantic, energy-sapping chase ahead of the Trouée d’Arenberg, yet come the finale, he still looked the man with the strongest legs in the race.

When Van Aert launched the key attack just ahead of the cobbles at Auchy-lez-Orchies with 54km, Pogačar was immediately on his wheel. Like at the Tour of Flanders a week ago, when he kept accelerating just enough to stop Remco Evenepoel from catching up to the winning move, Pogačar was visibly eager to keep forcing the pace and drive a stake through the heart of Mathieu van der Poel, who had somehow kept his hopes alive despite a disastrous double puncture in the Trouée d’Arenberg.

On several of the cobbled sections that followed, most notably at Mons-en-Pévèle and the Carrefour de l’Arbre, Pogačar seemed equally keen to rid himself of Van Aert’s company, repeatedly dialling up the intensity in a bid to shake off a rider who would only grow more dangerous as the velodrome drew closer.

Their duel was a gripping one, even more so than Pogačar’s tussle with Van der Poel a year ago. Pogačar, already winner of Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders this year, looked the stronger for long stretches of this race, but Van Aert was clearly more fluent in the treacherous grammar of the pavé. 

While Pogačar occasionally faltered by taking the wrong line, almost sliding out on the Carrefour de l’Arbre, Van Aert was always in full command of his machine even on the unruliest cobbles, never putting a pedal stroke out of place.

Every time Pogačar looked back, Van Aert was still there. With each passing sector, it felt as though the scales were tipping gently in favour of the more efficient Van Aert, with Pogačar expending ever more energy in an increasingly desperate attempt to drop him.

In the aftermath of the Tour of Flanders, much debate had centred on Van der Poel’s supposed over-willingness to work with Pogačar, to the annoyance of his father Adrie. “You have to race to win, not try to be the smartest. You don’t do that between great champions,” he said.

Maybe, but that argument also sounded a little like Mikel Arteta pointing to Arsenal’s possession stats after a defeat. The aim of bike racing is to win, not to earn a thumbs up and a pat on the back from Pogačar for your turns on the front. And even in the supersonic 2020s, it still helps to be the smartest rider in the race.

Van Aert was certainly that on Sunday. Rather than let himself get involved in a strongest man contest with Pogačar, he focused squarely on the business of winning the bike race. He worked as much he needed, but no more than that. When required, he shook off Pogačar’s entreaties for longer turns, content to let the world champion burn away more watts ahead of the denouement on the velodrome.

Once Van Aert survived Pogačar’s forcing on the Carrefour de l’Arbre, he became the favourite to win Paris-Roubaix, but that was still no guarantee. Yes, Van Aert has bunch sprint victories at the Tour on his resumé, but he is no longer the same rider who moved with such ease across all terrains four or five years ago.

Back then, Van Aert was one of the peloton’s ‘aliens,’ reaching his apogee with his all-action display on the 2022 Tour de France, which culminated in the startling moment he dropped Pogačar at Hautacam as he teed up Jonas Vingeegaard for victory.

In the years since, a variety of circumstances – including crashes – had seen Van Aert fall steadily from that elite tier, becoming a bystander as Pogačar and Van der Poel jousted for Monuments. Like Samson, Van Aert could still summon up momentary flashes of his old power, like on Montmartre at last year’s Tour, but he was also capable of the most human failings, like his squandering of a winning hand at Dwars door Vlaanderen twelve months ago.

It all added to the sense of jeopardy among Belgian supporters as Van Aert reached the gates of the velodrome. The national psychodrama was perhaps best illustrated by the video of KV Mechelen fans anxiously watching the sprint on the big screen at Achter de Kazerne stadium. Like France watching Thibaut Pinot at the Tour all those years, Belgium seemed braced for another traumatic defeat. 

After all those setbacks, how on earth would Van Aert pick himself from losing Paris-Roubaix? 

Mercifully for Van Aert and his legions of fans, it didn’t come down to that. Pogačar, for once, had punched himself out. The UAE man played his part in making this race what it was, but his efforts finally told. Even if only for an afternoon, he was back among the mortals after an unbeaten run stretching back to last year's World Championships in Kigali. 

As Pogačar faded, Van Aert finally got to execute the sprint he said he had planned ever since he first raced Paris-Roubaix back in 2018. And even in the moment of his greatest triumph, Van Aert cast his mind back to that day, when any satisfaction at his encouraging 13th place was dispelled by the tragic news that his Verandas Willems-Crelan teammate Michael Goolaerts had died of cardiac arrest.

Grief, as we know, has a tendency to ebb and flow, and it has washed over Van Aert again every time he has trekked across the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix. It was with him once more on Sunday, and he didn’t ignore it, pointing to the sky as he crossed the line and then crumpling into tears as he lay on the infield of the Roubaix velodrome.

In the end, this Paris-Roubaix didn’t produce perfection, but it gave us something even better, something messy and human. That’s why we watch.