Gallery: The grit and glory of Paris-Roubaix

by Iain Treloar 10.04.2023 Photography by
Kristof Ramon and Jered and Ashley Gruber More from Iain +

Paris-Roubaix is a race of overlapping storylines – a crash here, a puncture there, a bridged gap and an opened one. When the final chapter is closed at the day’s end on the hallowed infield of Roubaix velodrome, one rider emerges triumphant, but those narratives through the day aren’t any the less significant because of that.

The 2023 edition of the men’s race was defined not by a scrappy breakaway’s survival, but a progressive whittling down of the favourites. The attrition of Trouée d’Arenberg and the following cobbled sectors – stretches of road with names that are part of cycling’s folklore – led to the emergence of an elite group of seven riders at the front, trailed by group after group after group.

And so the tension built, until the Carrefour de l’Arbre sector, 15 km from the finish. It was the race in microcosm: a crash (2015 winner John Degenkolb), a puncture (pre-race favourite Wout van Aert, at the worst possible time), an opened gap (Mathieu van der Poel, taking off alone); good luck and bad, good legs and great ones. Twenty minutes of racing later, Van der Poel lifted the cobble in Roubaix: winner of the race’s fastest-ever edition and his second Monument of the season. One story in a day full of them.

Through the fabled lenses of our photographers – Kristof Ramon and Jared and Ashley Gruber – these are some of the stories of the 2023 Paris-Roubaix.