This Sunday brings with it the biggest afternoon of one-day racing on the calendar as Northern France welcomes the professional pelotons once again for the 123rd edition of the men’s Paris-Roubaix and the 6th Paris-Roubaix Femmes.

Over the years, the cobbles of the Nord department – including the Trouée d’Arenberg and the Carrefour de l’Arbre – and the Vélodrome André-Pétrieux have played host to countless iconic and memorable rides.

No doubt more will be added to the list this weekend as Mathieu van der Poel aims for win number four against Tadej Pogačar while riders including Lotte Kopecky and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot battle to be the first to win two editions of the women’s race.

They’ll follow in the wheeltracks of countless legends of the sport at a race which can look back in history to the 19th century. For this article, we’re looking at just the 21st century – and there were already too many iconic moments to choose from.

There are countless stories to tell at even a single edition of Paris-Roubaix, but each race has an overarching narrative written by the winner. We’ve taken a look back over the last 25 years to pick out some of the stand-out editions of the Queen of the Classics.

Here’s our list of the most memorable editions of Paris-Roubaix this century.

2000: Johan Museeuw’s comeback win and a famous celebration

The first iconic edition of Paris-Roubaix on our list comes with one of the most memorable celebrations in racing history – Johan Museeuw clipping out of his pedal, sticking his leg in the air and pointing to his knee as he crossed the finish line in the Roubaix velodrome.

Museeuw, the Lion of Flanders, was one of the most fearsome one-day competitors in the peloton, having racked up three Tour of Flanders titles, a win at Roubaix, and a world title among a host of major Classics wins.

That status, and his entire career, was threatened in 1998, his 11th season in the peloton. Spring started as well as any other with wins at E3, Brabantse Pijl, and that third Flanders title, but, come Roubaix, disaster struck.

Museeuw collided with a pole entering the Arenberg Forest, shattering his kneecap in the process. He wouldn’t race for another five months, almost losing his leg to gangrene in the meantime. He was back racing a full season in 1999, winning some smaller Belgian races, finishing third in Flanders, and taking ninth in Roubaix, but he wasn’t at his best.

That return would come in the spring of 2000, with wins at Omloop, Brabantse Pijl again, and then the famous triumph at Roubaix. Museeuw went clear with Frankie Andreu 60km from the finish, the pair catching and passing Museeuw’s Mapei teammate Max van Heeswijk on the way to his own race-winning attack, a solo move 38km from the finish at the Ennetières sector of cobbles.

He pushed on into a headwind, holding on to win despite a lead of almost three minutes ebbing away to 15 seconds in Roubaix.

“It’s a dream indeed. Two years ago, I almost lost my leg, I have taken a lot of medicine, and I have worked enormously. In 1999, I reached an acceptable level. This year, I have had the ambition to win one of the big races. For me, the Paris-Roubaix is the ideal race to win, not for the sake of revenge but rather as a symbol of my comeback,” he said after the race.

“But my greatest victory is that I’ve come back to racing at all, after the crash two years ago.”

2001: Servais Knaven leads home a rare podium sweep

Paris-Roubaix is a hard race to win, a challenging, brutal conclusion to the cobbled Classics. It’s hard to imagine that any team would have the strength – and the luck – to lock out the podium at the race.

But venture 25-30 years into the past, and the occurrence was almost commonplace. Mapei’s powerhouse Classics squad, a force unseen in today’s spring racing, astonishingly achieved the feat in 1996, 1998, and 1999 with Johan Museeuw, Franco Ballerini, and Andrea Tafi taking home the cobblestone trophy.

In 2001, the Belgian squad Domo-Farm Frites managed it too. The new team was composed partly from the cobbled Classics core of Mapei, partly from the Farm Frites squad, and led by Mapei boss Patrick Lefevere.

Peter Van Petegem didn’t stick around, but with names including Museeuw, Wilfried Peeters, Servais Knaven, Romans Vainšteins, Robbie McEwen, and Richard Virenque on board, the team was immediately among the strongest in the peloton.

They didn’t dominate spring as Mapei had, as the Belgian Classics passed with barely a podium spot to go around (Peeters at Dwars door Vlaanderen). However, their masterclass was still to come on the mud-spattered roads of France.

Unusually, the decisive split of the race was made even before the Arenberg; such were the grim conditions. Domo had four men among 13 out front, then sent Peeters out solo 90km from the finish. Riding his final Roubaix, the veteran was only caught inside the final 25km, at which point Domo retained their four men among a lead group reduced to just seven riders.

With Peeters spent and Museeuw using energy chasing back on the Carrefour de l’Arbre from one of a reported five punctures, it was Knaven who dealt the race’s killer blow. The Dutchman attacked 10km from Roubaix, dispatching a persistent George Hincapie and going on to score the biggest win of his career. Behind, Museeuw powered away from the chase for second, while world champion Vainšteins sprinted home to round out the podium sweep.

“Only when I was out in front, I started to laugh at the situation. Today I gained something for myself. My sacrifices over the winter in cyclo-cross were not in vain,” Knaven, the least heralded Domo rider in the front group, said later.

“I always thought that one day I would find myself in a situation where I had the advantage at the end of a Classic. I did not think it would be in Paris-Roubaix, rather with a race like Het Volk.”

2002: Johan Museeuw dominates in the wet as a new Belgian star emerges

After a stunning comeback triumph in 2000, Johan Museeuw wasn’t finished with Paris-Roubaix yet. Two years later, the Belgian star had two wins under his belt, and he was on the tail of Moser and Merckx.

Still on a Domo team featuring Knaven, Van Heeswijk, and with a now-retired Peeters in the team car, he was all set for a showdown with Mapei and their leader, Tour of Flanders champion Andrea Tafi.

A week earlier, Museeuw had attacked over the Muur only for the Italian to solo to glory in the final kilometres. The tables would be turned at Roubaix, though, with Tafi suffering from bronchitis during the week and decapitating the Mapei threat in another wet and muddy Roubaix. Come the finish, Tafi was the team’s best finisher, over nine minutes down in 17th.

In contrast, Museeuw was on full form for Roubaix’s centenary edition. He headed off the threat from US Postal and the heir to his crown as Belgium’s Classics superstar, a 21-year-old Tom Boonen.

The neo-pro made the early break along with Domo men Van Heeswijk and Enrico Cassani, and he was still out front when a small group – including Museeuw, Knaven, and George Hincapie – made contact with the remains of the break at Mons-en-Pévèle.

Museeuw kept on pushing at the front, eventually going clear and taking the two US Postal men, Boonen and Hincapie, with him. 40km from Roubaix, he was gone, setting off en route to win number three. Behind, Boonen and Hincapie quickly lost ground, and the Belgian was left to fend for himself in the final after Hincapie crashed at Camphin-en-Pévèle.

He’d miss out to Steffen Wesemann in the closing sprint, but the day marked the birth of a new Classics star – in addition to the crowning of an older one.

“I don’t know why I attacked at that moment. I felt good. I did not think about it. I simply accelerated and rode hard for the next 10 kilometres. And, when my advantage reached 1’10, I told myself that it was possible to win. Nevertheless, if I had not known the disillusionment of last Sunday, I would not be here to comment on my victory,” Museeuw concluded.

2004: Magnus Bäckstedt realises the ‘chance of a lifetime’

Before he took on Paris-Roubaix for the fifth time in his career in 2004, Swedish racer Magnus Bäckstedt called the race “pure fun”, a description that few other riders would use for the Hell of the North.

Among two previous DNFs, he had finished seventh and 19th at the race previously, but this time around, he headed to France in top form following a near-miss second place in the sprint at Gent-Wevelgem, then held midweek following the Tour of Flanders.

That season was his first with Italian squad Alessio-Bianchi, having joined alongside several other Scandinavians from the folding Fakta squad. Alessio had troubles of their own, however, running into sponsorship and financial trouble in February. By 2005, they were no more, having merged with Vini Caldirola to form Liquigas.

The squad lined up in Compiègne with six riders rather than the standard eight, headed up by 37-year-old former winner Andrea Tafi. But once the racing got going, it was clear that Bäckstedt would be the leader on the road – he was the team’s sole representative among the 19-man lead group after the Arenberg Forest.

Bäckstedt hung in the group, largely keeping quiet as attacks came and went, but matching a Johan Museeuw move at 51km to go, and he remained out front as the group shattered on the Carrefour de l’Arbre.

Six leaders then turned into five – Bäckstedt, Museeuw, a neo-pro Fabian Cancellara, British champion Roger Hammond, and Tristan Hoffman – heading into the final 10km, and then to four after Museeuw’s untimely puncture with 6km to go. The surviving quartet raced into a headwind to the velodrome, ensuring a sprint finish. Cancellara led it out, but the more experienced companions smothered him.

Bäckstedt, flying up the inside around the final bend, sped through to score the crowning achievement of his career.

“I can’t believe I won it,” he said later. “My plan for the race this morning was to keep an eye on Museeuw, Van Petegem, Wesemann, and even on Tom Boonen. While doing that, I made sure to stay out of the wind and out of trouble, and I didn’t have one puncture.

“When it came down to a group of four, I realised I had a chance of a lifetime to win Paris-Roubaix. I didn’t hesitate when I saw a gap open up on the inside. Once I got through, they gave me a little gap, and that was it.”

2007: Stuart O’Grady’s unexpected triumph

Three years on from Bäckstedt’s triumph, Paris-Roubaix would play host to another surprise victory, this time from the Swede’s former Crédit Agricole teammate, the Australian veteran Stuart O’Grady.

Having supported Frédéric Moncassin at GAN in the mid 1990s, he had been a Paris-Roubaix leader at Crédit Agricole and Cofidis, but a move to CSC in 2006 saw him understandably playing lieutenant to young starlet Fabian Cancellara. Only he was forced to watch the Swiss rider win his first title from home after breaking five ribs and a collarbone at Tirreno-Adriatico.

In 2007, the hierarchy remained the same, with the pre-race attention understandably on another Cancellara vs Boonen showdown. Few prognosticated that O’Grady, racing his 10th Roubaix and with a previous best finish of 16th, would cross the line first that Sunday.

He was in the form of his life that spring, though, finishing among the top five at Omloop, Milano-Torino, Milan-San Remo, and the Dwars door Vlaanderen and taking top 10s at E3 and the Tour of Flanders. On the day, a hot and dry edition of the race, he infiltrated the early break alongside teammates Luke Roberts and Matti Breschel, later puncturing out of the move on the Arenberg and dropping back to the favourites group alongside Cancellara and Boonen.

With 34km to go, he followed a move by Steffen Wesemann to the front of the race, while Cancellara was dropped soon afterwards. O’Grady and several others caught breakaway survivors David Kopp and Kevin Van Impe, but he was out front alone at 26km to go after attacking at Cysoing à Bourghelles.

He powered on to a lead of a minute by Carrefour de l’Arbre, while further back, Boonen had left it too late to make his move. Those he had left behind had no chance of catching O’Grady, and so he was left to race on to his biggest triumph with a solo ride into the velodrome.

“I’ve dreamt of winning this race since I was a kid, and it actually still feels like a dream now it’s actually come true,” O’Grady said upon finishing. “It’s gonna be days before it hits me for real. I was going to win today or die trying.”

2010: Fabian Cancellara’s dominant solo ride

Along with Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancellara was the cobbled king of the late 2000s and early 2010s. The Swiss racer, a natural time trialist in contrast to his rival’s fast-twitch sprint style, won three editions each of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix during his career, with three further wins at E3 to boot.

His ride to win Roubaix in 2010 was Cancellara at his best, coming during a spring that saw him win all three races. Only Boonen in 2005 had done it previously. At E3, he’d beaten Boonen into second with a solo move 2km from the line, while Flanders was won after dropping the Belgian on the Muur van Geraardsbergen and riding solo for the final 15km to win by over a minute.

Cancellara truly had no equal that spring, and Roubaix only cemented that. His form was so supreme that he took off far earlier on the road to the velodrome, dispatching with Boonen and the rest with a mammoth 49km left to race.

It was on the run-in to Mons-en-Pévèle, rather than the cobbles themselves, where Cancellara made his winning move. But there was no all-out attack. Instead, as Boonen lay at the rear of the select group of favourites, he calmly rode to the front, bridged across to the attacking trio of Leif Hoste, Bjorn Leukemans, and Sebastian Hinault, and powered past.

It was a move full of power but somehow relaxed at the same time. He just rode away. Leukemans offered some resistance on the Mons-en-Pévèle, but Cancellara was soon alone, riding off well into the distance and an insurmountable lead. The chase group – Boonen, racing alongside the breakaway trio plus Thor Hushovd, Juan Antonio Flecha, Roger Hammond, and Filippo Pozzato – simply had no answers to the world’s supreme time trial rider.

Nobody saw Cancellara, who had built a three-minute advantage, before the velodrome, where he crossed the finish line two minutes ahead of the second-placed Hushovd. His victory was the biggest since Museeuw’s eight years earlier, though Boonen, of course, had to one-up him soon after.

“I wanted the double, I wanted to do something that left a mark in the history of cycling,” Cancellara said after the finish. “Many great riders have won this race, and it’s an honour for me to now have won it twice like the late Franco Ballerini did.

“I hadn’t planned to attack in that moment. But that’s racing, it’s important to seize the right moment and I got it exactly right. When I went, the gap was there and it was increasing, so I went full gas but with a little left just in case because there was a long way to go. But I made it.”

2012: Tom Boonen equals the great Roger De Vlaeminck

Before Tom Boonen turned pro and hit the cobbles in the early 2000s, only his predecessor Johan Museeuw had managed to conquer Paris-Roubaix three times since Francesco Moser’s final win in 1980. Nobody else had come close to the four won by Roger De Vlaeminck, his total untouched since 1977, though Museeuw might have made it had 2001 or 2004 gone slightly differently.

But along came Boonen. He inherited the title of cobbled king from his countryman, knocking out three victories in 2005, 2008, and 2009 to go with two at the Tour of Flanders. His duels with Fabian Cancellara were the Van der Poel vs Pogačar of 15 years ago – appointment viewing.

In 2010, Boonen lost out in the duel as Cancellara soloed away, while in 2011, he was foiled by mechanicals and crashes. The 2012 race would be different, though, the crowning glory of a spring where he proved to be near unstoppable. Only Rik Van Looy in 1962 had won the Tour of Flanders, Gent-Wevelgem, and Paris-Roubaix in one spring; In 2012, Boonen took them all and added E3 to the list – a feat unmatched in cycling history.

At Flanders a week earlier, as Cancellara sadly crashed and broke his collarbone, Boonen had bested Filippo Pozzato in a two-up sprint, but his Roubaix triumph was as different as could be.

Having been up front in the Arenberg and used his fearsome Omega Pharma-QuickStep team to chase down moves afterwards, Boonen ended up out front with teammate Niki Terpstra plus Pozzato, Alessandro Ballan, and Sébastian Turgot with 60km to run. He and Terpstra soon stepped on the gas to leave the rest behind, and with 53km to run, even Terpstra couldn’t keep up.

The prospect of going alone to the end was hardly thinkable, but he persisted as Sky led a chase group of 14 men behind. Boonen didn’t have the numbers, but he had the power, steadily building his lead to a minute with 27km to go and pushing on to win number four as the chasers fractured behind.

In the process of equalling RDV, Boonen became the first man to do the Flanders-Roubaix double twice, and scored an astonishing 11th Roubaix victory in 18 years for Patrick Lefevere.

“I was not really thinking about the winning race or doing a record. I was just fighting myself. I was taking it step by step, cobblestone by cobblestone, kilometre by kilometre,” Boonen said after his win.

“If I look on these past two or three weeks, it’s been amazing. It’s my second double. Now I’m the only guy that ever did this double two times. I realise now that I’ll probably be one of the best, maybe the best, guy on the cobblestones that ever rode on these roads.”

2016: Mathew Hayman delivers a shock underdog victory

The history of Paris-Roubaix is littered with underdog triumphs, perhaps more than any other race on the calendar. Mathew Hayman’s in 2016 stands as the most memorable of the past quarter century.

The 37-year-old Australian was a rank outsider at the start of the 2016 race, the 15th of his career. He had finished among the top 10 before, twice in fact, but his cobbled racing career to that point – at Rabobank and Sky – had been spent working for others as opposed to leading himself.

His long odds (80 to 1 or a 1.2% chance), well behind top picks the world and Flanders champion Peter Sagan and the retiring Fabian Cancellara, were also partly due to him suffering a broken arm just six weeks earlier at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. He lined up in Compiègne, having missed the whole of the cobbled Classics, instead logging over 1,000km on Zwift in his garage.

Despite his less-than-ideal run-in to the race, Hayman ended up making the main break of the day, going away in a group of 16 some 65km into the race. They raced out to a three-minute lead, while back in the peloton, a race-changing event happened as early as sector 20 at Monchaux-sur-Écaillon, with Sagan and Cancellara both caught on the wrong side of a split following a crash in the group.

Well over 100km remained, but Etixx-QuickStep pushed on, ensuring the two favourites never made it back to the front of the race. Huge stints on the front by time trial ace Tony Martin saw to that, leaving Tom Boonen in a select group alongside Vanmarcke and several Sky racers. A Cancellara crash, featuring a Sagan bunnyhop over his bike, on Mons-en-Pévèle ended the Swiss rider’s chances of salvaging a result, while up front the final five – Hayman, Boonen, Vanmarcke, Edvald Boasson Hagen, and Ian Stannard – came together among a 10-man lead group.

That quintet led the way to Roubaix following further selections on Camphin-en-Pévèle and Carrefour de l’Arbre, and it came down to a velodrome sprint after a tactical run to the finish featuring endless attacks and counters. Boonen led it out on the velodrome, but got boxed in coming around the final bend. Hayman, leading from the front, had the power to just hold off the Belgian and score the ultimate underdog victory.

“The only emotion I felt was disbelief. To win Paris-Roubaix is pretty surreal. But I think I’ve done my time, I’ve ridden Roubaix 15 times; I’ve sprinted on the track for a top ten. Sometimes you have to go for it, and sometimes good things happen,” Hayman said.

“I spent a lot of time on the home trainer; I was in my own little world, riding in the garage twice a day. I knew I had to hold onto the months and months of training that I do for the Classics every year. I didn’t want all that to be taken away by a crash. So if there was no chance that I could get back, then I’d do it.”

2021: Lizzie Deignan’s remarkable solo caps first women’s Roubaix

The historic 2021 edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes was also perhaps the least dynamic to date in terms of racing. Lizzie Deignan’s long solo move to clinch victory may not have provoked many thrills, with the winner’s identity known well before the finish, but it’s unlikely to be replicated anytime soon, and it was a remarkable feat.

At 116.5km in length, the inaugural edition of the race was a full 32km shorter than the 2025 race, and it was with just over 32km of racing completed that the winning move was launched here.

Deignan accelerated off the front on the very first cobbled sector of 17, the four-star sector at Hornaing à Wandignies. She was in such strong form that she raced away to a two-minute lead before television coverage even began some 20km later.

Further back, rain showers caused chaos as riders, including world champion Elisa Balsamo, Elisa Longo Borghini, Annemiek van Vleuten, Ellen van Dijk, and Lotte Kopecky, crashed on the wet cobbles. Deignan, unbothered, ploughed onwards to a lead reaching over 2:30. A chase group of contenders eventually formed, though with teams lacking numbers, there was little cooperation.

This all played into Deignan’s hands, with the Briton relentlessly racing onwards and holding a two-minute lead on the approach to Carrefour de l’Arbre. Marianne Vos went solo to lead the charge behind, but it was too little, too late. Deignan was still 1:20 up as she hit the final cobbled sector in Roubaix, and she held on to complete her dominant ride with a margin of 1:17 over Vos. A historic ride for a historic race.

“It definitely wasn’t the plan going into it, and I certainly wasn’t thinking about winning when I went onto those cobbles, no,” Deignan said after her triumph.

“It was a good tactic, but not one that I particularly enjoyed. I think that if Van Dijk had been in my position, she’d have won the race by a few more minutes than I did.”

2021: Chaos and a debut victory in first wet men’s race in 19 years

A wait of almost two decades came to an end in 2021 as Covid-19 struck cycling. The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the pandemic, while the 2021 race was rescheduled following a French national lockdown. The result, an October edition of Paris-Roubaix, brought with it rain and mud, the first edition run in such conditions since 2002.

The race was a very different edition from the start, with a host of notable names attacking to make the break of 30 men well before hitting the cobbles. Greg Van Avermaet, Jasper Philipsen, Stefan Küng, and youngster Florian Vermeersch were in the move.

Of the leaders, 29 of them wouldn’t last in the lead all the way to the Roubaix velodrome, but Vermeersch put in a stunning ride to hold on and contest victory after six hours of toil in the mud.

He’d be joined at the front by fellow debutants Sonny Colbrelli and Mathieu van der Poel, the pair cutting through the remains of the break to join him in the chase behind a solo Gianni Moscon. The Italian led the race after going solo 53km from the line, only for a puncture and crash to undo his advantage, leaving the aforementioned trio at the head of the race on Carrefour de l’Arbre.

In the end, the race came down to a three-man sprint, with Vermeersch leading out and Van der Poel trying but failing to come around the outside of Colbrelli.

“This is my first Paris-Roubaix, and I still can’t believe what I achieved and what I’ve done on the cobblestones. Moreover, the mud was difficult. I was close to crashing a few times, but I kept my head focussed and I managed to stay upright and follow Van der Poel,” Colbrelli, the third rider to win the men’s race on his debut, said.

“This morning, I didn’t even think that I would manage to finish the race. I started and rode without pressure.”

2023: Alison Jackson’s famous win from the breakaway

Canadian racer Alison Jackson didn’t top many favourites’ lists in the run-up to the third edition of the Paris-Roubaix Femmes. Results such as fifth at the 2021 Dwars door Vlaanderen and 13th at the 2022 Roubaix established her as a solid Classics rider, but Jackson wasn’t a Monument-contending superstar.

Heading into the 2023 race, she had some good results to her name, including second at the Clásica de Almería and fourth at the Trofeo Oro in Euro, but few would have anticipated her ride in Northern France.

On the day itself, Jackson made it into the early break of 18 riders, which went clear after 20km of racing. It was a strong group which built a five-minute lead that lasted well into the second half of the race.

With 50km to run, when Lotte Kopecky made the first big move from behind, the favourites still lay four minutes down. At the often-pivotal sector of Carrefour de l’Arbre, as the break split apart and attacks flew behind, the leaders still had a minute.

Jackson stuck out front, of course, along with six others, and the group managed to hang on to their ever-slimming lead on the final run to Roubaix. There would be a velodrome sprint, and it was Jackson who came out on top, jumping from Marion Borras’s wheel to go clear on the home straight and win.

Cue wild celebrations, an iconic infield dance, and another underdog triumph in the annals of Roubaix history.

“I grew up on a farm in rural Alberta, and one of the things I had to do as a kid was to go to the field and pick rocks by hand and put them in the truck. Lo and behold, I’m picking another rock today,” Jackson said after her triumph.

2024: Mathieu van der Poel at his dominant best

Few riders in Paris-Roubaix history have dominated the race as Mathieu van der Poel has in recent years. The Dutchman has won the last three editions of the race, each solo, each by some margin over second place.

His second win in 2024 has been his standout achievement to date, taken in the fastest edition of Paris-Roubaix of all time, with the 259.7km race run at an average speed of 47.802kph. Come the finish line in Roubaix, he was a full three minutes ahead of his nearest competitor, the largest winning margin at the race since the 2002 edition.

His Alpecin-Deceuninck team controlled the early part of the race, and he moved past Mads Pedersen in the Arenberg Forest before hitting the front, then monitored his rivals as teammate Gianni Vermeersch headed up the road before attacking.

That move came a mammoth 60km from the finish line on sector 13 at Orchies, and that was it. Despite the efforts of Pedersen and Nils Politt behind, he had a minute 10km later, two minutes with 40km to go, and approaching three at Carrefour de l’Arbre.

All that remained was to stay upright to Roubaix and cap the most dominant win in recent history, becoming the 11th rider to do the Flanders-Roubaix double in the process and following Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen in doing the triple along with E3.

“I just wanted to make it a hard final from there, and I think that’s always my strength, to make it a hard final,” Van der Poel said later.

“I didn’t expect to be alone from this cobblestone sector, but I had a nice gap. It was also mostly a tailwind to the finish line, so I knew that I could hold it.”

2025: France finally salutes a home winner

Home fans had waited 18 long years to witness a home winner at Paris-Roubaix before Pauline Ferrand-Prévot showed up in 2025. Frédéric Guesdon was the last French racer to deliver a victory back in 1997, while Sébastien Turgot is the only man to step on the final podium since then.

In the first four editions of the women’s race, no French riders made the podium, but Ferrand-Prévot, racing her first full road season in seven years, would change all that.

During the spring, she finished on the podium at both Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders, establishing herself as a favourite for Roubaix.

On the day, she was dominant, with her and Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Marianne Vos covering attack after attack before soloing across to lone leader Emma Norsgaard with 25km to go on the Bourghelles à Wannehain sector.

On the Camphin-en-Pévèle, 6km later, she was out front alone, racing on to victory by an eventual 58-second margin. France could finally celebrate a champion of their own.

“I can only say whoa! I did it, we did it together! It’s just amazing,” Ferrand-Prévot said later.

“I feel so happy for myself, but also for the whole team. We were waiting for that win for quite a long time. I think we have one of the biggest wins, so we can be really happy.”

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