Can Tadej Pogačar win Paris-Roubaix? We crack open the history books to find out

It’s fair to say that the narrative of the 2025 men’s cycling season has so far been dominated by two questions. Will Tadej Pogačar ride Paris-Roubaix? And can Tadej Pogačar win Paris-Roubaix?

The first of those questions, the result of years of speculation and a cheeky video posted by the world champion of a recce through the Trouée d'Arenberg, was answered in late March, when Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates squad announced that he was set to upend his classics campaign, ditching planned outings at E3 and Gent-Wevelgem, to finally make his debut at the Hell of the North.

The second question, however, is an altogether trickier affair. Over the past few years, the 26-year-old has made it clear he can do virtually anything on a bike, ripping up the staid conventions of specialism which permeated professional cycling from the 1990s, and riding and winning races grand tour contenders wouldn’t have even marked on their calendars a decade ago.

Tadej Pogačar Tour of Flanders 2025 (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

The three-time Tour de France winner has proven he’s equally at home on the steep cobbled bergs of Flanders as he is on long, Alpine passes, capable of blowing away his rivals over the course of three weeks or in just 200km, as adept at picking up wins in March or October as he is in July.

Stubborn spectre of Milan-Sanremo aside, his triumphant return to the Tour of Flanders last Sunday, blowing away the greatest cobbles specialists of his generation once again, underlined Pogačar’s Merckxian ability not just to win but to dominate on all kinds of terrain, all year round. You don’t enter ‘greatest of all time’ debates for nothing, after all.

But can he really win Paris-Roubaix, and at the first time of asking?

Because, just like the old cliché that the Tour is the Tour, according to cycling’s grand narrative, the Hell of the North is a different beast entirely.

Tadej Pogačar Tour of Flanders 2025 (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

While Pogačar has demonstrated his ability to handle the cobbled hills of Flanders, and he certainly has the form and confidence to go with it, Paris-Roubaix’s pan-flat course and uniquely brutal, jagged pavé require brute power, perfect bike handling skills, and a pig-headed approach to fighting for position among the heavyweights of the peloton.

The altogether lighter world champion may have been able to dispatch Mathieu van der Poel, Mads Pedersen, and Wout van Aert on the Oude Kwaremont – it will be another thing altogether to keep track of them in the Arenberg Forest or follow their accelerations on the Carrefour de l’Arbre.

Of course, Pogačar has shown his chops on Paris-Roubaix’s pavé before, in an impressive ride at the 2022 Tour de France, but over more benign sectors and in the long-range context of a grand tour.

Tadej Pogačar, cobbled stage, 2022 Tour de France (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

On Sunday, perhaps for the first time in years, he enters a race as the underdog.

While Greg LeMond, the last reigning Tour de France winner to take on the Hell of the North, way back in 1991, reckons Pogačar can “absolutely” win on Sunday, others aren’t so sure.

2019 Roubaix winner Philippe Gilbert, for instance, believes the world champion needs to put in his “greatest performance ever” to beat Van der Poel and company. Meanwhile, Tour de France route designer Thierry Gouvenou this week questioned whether Pogačar could win the race on debut, pointing out that “if you look at the statistics, then no… but with him you never know”.

So, inspired by Gouvenou, we decided to delve into the stats to ask cycling’s biggest question: Can Pogačar come out on top in the Roubaix velodrome.

Can you win Paris-Roubaix after winning the Tour of Flanders?

This one’s easy – yes. 11 riders have taken the coveted men’s Flanders-Roubaix double, including four-time winner Roger De Vlaeminck, his fellow record-holder Tom Boonen (who did the double twice, in 2005 and 2012), and Fabian Cancellara, who also doubled up twice in 2010 and 2013.

PR - Tom Boonen leads the race (© Owen Rogers) (credit: road.cc)

Most recently, of course, Mathieu van der Poel secured the Ronde-Roubaix double in the rainbow jersey last year – a feat Pogačar will be hoping to emulate on Sunday.

Can you win Paris-Roubaix as world champion?

Unsurprisingly, being world champion doesn’t discount you from winning Paris-Roubaix, but it’s rarer than you might think.

Paris-Roubaix Femmes 2024 (credit: Eloise Mavian / Tornanti.cc)

In the men’s race, seven riders have won the Hell of the North in the rainbow jersey, including Francesco Moser, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx, Peter Sagan, and Van der Poel, while Lotte Kopecky also won last year’s Roubaix as world champion, and is hoping to repeat the feat this year.

Can you win Paris-Roubaix on your first try?

This is where things start to get tricky for Pogačar. Roubaix, like its fellow cobbled monument, the Tour of Flanders, has something of a reputation for favouring experienced old hands who have memorised every inch of the route.

In fact, only four riders in the history of the men’s and women’s races have won on their debut – and two of them (Josef Fischer in 1896 and Lizzie Deignan in 2021) achieved that feat by default because it was the very first editions of their respective races.

Sonny Colbrelli, 2021 Paris-Roubaix (credit: A.S.O./Pauline Ballet)

In fact, setting aside Fischer and Deignan, Sonny Colbrelli became the first debutant to win Paris-Roubaix since Jean Forestier in 1955 when he sprinted to victory in the famous old velodrome in 2021 on his sole career ride in the monument.

Incidentally, that autumnal, Covid-delayed, and wet and muddy edition of the Hell of the North remarkably saw a podium packed with Roubaix first-timers, as Colbrelli was joined by Florian Vermeersch and Van der Poel.

So, don’t be ruling out another debut win just yet.

Can you win Paris-Roubaix as a Tour de France champion?

There’s a reason Tadej Pogačar’s Paris-Roubaix debut is a big deal. Since the 1990s, the consensus within cycling is that the chaos and carnage of the Hell of the North (or basically any cobbled classic) don’t mix well with the highly calculated, marginal gains approach of grand tour contenders.

In fact, the last reigning Tour de Frace winner to even ride Paris-Roubaix was Greg LeMond – famed at the time for focusing solely on the Tour – back in 1991 (Bradley Wiggins also finished ninth at the 2014 race, two years on from his Tour de France victory).

Overall, just 10 Tour winners have also won Paris-Roubaix (this number expands to just 12 when you factor in the other two grand tours), including Henri Cornet, Octave Lapize, Henri Pélissier, André Leducq, Sylvère Maes, Fausto Coppi, Louison Bobet, Jan Janssen, and Merckx.

Bernard Hinault, 1981 Paris-Roubaix (credit: road.cc)

Bernard Hinault – noted for his loathing of the cobbled monument – was the last Tour winner to add Roubaix to his palmares, in 1981, his fourth crack at the Hell of the North by that point, contrary to the popular belief that the Badger was a ‘one and done’ kind of guy when it came to the cobbles.

And, more worryingly for Pogačar, only three reigning Tour de France winners have gone on to victory in Roubaix the following spring, Coppi (1950), Bobet (1956), and Merckx (who, naturally, did it twice in 1970 and 1973). That’s not a bad list at all.

But, just forget about the stats and history books for moment – this is Tadej Pogačar and Paris-Roubaix we’re talking about. Anything could happen on Sunday.