Paris-Roubaix 2022: Who’s riding? When is it on TV? Can returning Wout van Aert take Mathieu van der Poel down a peg?

Now the French public (or at least, some of them) has voted in the Presidential elections, what should have happened last weekend can now happen: the 119th edition of Paris-Roubaix will be run on Easter Sunday one day after the second edition of the women’s Queen of the Classics.

While the calendar quirk has largely mystified fans used to the Tour of Flanders following Paris-Roubaix on successive Sundays, it has kept the door open to Wout van Aert, the Belgian champion who missed the Ronde after contracting Covid earlier during Flanders Week. In his absence, Mathieu van der Poel won a thrilling edition after being pushed by debutant Tadej Pogacar all the way to the finish.

But Van der Poel could not sustain his stellar streak last Sunday at the Amstel Gold Race – and this unorthodox overlapping of the start of Ardennes Week with the showpiece race of the cobbled classic season could well make for an unpredictable spectacle as Paris-Roubaix returns to its springtime slot for the first time since 2019.

With sunshine and mild temperatures forecast over the weekend, the same muddy conditions which made last year’s Hell of the North live up to its name will not be a factor. But racing over the coarse and unforgiving cobblestones of northern France is never a picnic, so fans can still expect high levels of pain, suffering and drama.

And while it won’t be raining, it may not exactly be dry and dusty either: the odd puddle and muddy patch may remain from the winter – even after the usual clean-up by Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix in the week leading up to the racing. As you can see…

Back in its springtime slot – albeit not, as usual, one week after the Tour of Flanders, but sandwiched between the Amstel Gold Race and Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Sunday 17th April – owing to a clash with the first round of the French presidential elections. The race starts at 10:00 UK time and is expected to finish around 16:20 UK time.

The second edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes takes place one day earlier, on Saturday 16th April. It starts at 11:25 UK time and is scheduled to finish around 14:50 UK time.

Eurosport has you covered for both races, with coverage of the women’s race from 12:15 to 15:10 UK time on the Saturday, and of the men’s race from 09:30 to 17:00 UK time – bookended by The Breakaway. You can also watch both editions of Paris-Roubaix on discovery+ and GCN+.

Delayed by one year owing to the pandemic, and playing out in early October too, the inaugural edition of the Paris-Roubaix Femmes was decided by a bold solo attack as Britain’s Lizzie Deignan struck out with 80km remaining just ahead of the first cobblestone sector. With Dutch legend Marianne Vos in pursuit behind, the Trek-Segafredo rider kept her cool and held the gap – at one point showcasing her deft bike-handling skills in a particularly muddy section of coarse cobbles at Cysoing.

It was in this same sector, with 25km remaining, that the wheels came off Gianni Moscon’s challenge in the men’s race one day later. In hideous conditions – the first wet and muddy Paris-Roubaix in two decades – the Italian rider from Ineos Grenadiers was part of a leading trio before going alone inside the final 45km. He punctured with 31km remaining and then hit the deck at almost the exact same spot where Deignan rode out her luck.

Moscon was caught with 16km remaining before Sonny Colbrelli – famously riding tubeless tyres – beat Florian Vermeersch (the young Belgian from Lotto Soudal who had been in the earlier move with Moscon) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) in a three-way sprint between debutants in the velodrome. Victory sparked some memorable celebrations from Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious), who rolled around on the floor before euphorically lifting his bike above his mud-caked face.

Fourth place went to Moscon at 44 seconds before Belgium’s Yves Lampaert (Deceuninck-QuickStep) led home a select chase group that included compatriot Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) at 1:16. In the women’s race, Vos (Jumbo-Visma) took second at 1:17 before Deignan’s Trek-Segafredo team-mate Elisa Longo Borghini came home for third at 1:47.

Defending champion Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) will not defend his crown as the Italian battles back from a career-threatening heart problem that surfaced during the Volta a Catalunya. The 2019 champion Philippe Gilbert (Lotto Soudal) is focusing on the Ardennes while there are ongoing doubts over the inclusion of Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies) as the Slovakian continues to struggle with apparent long-Covid.

This means the most recent champion taking to the start may be the Belgian Greg van Avermaet of Ag2R-Citroen – and we can probably all agree that his best days are behind him. The 2017 winner will be joined by Sagan’s team-mate, the Dutch 2014 champion Niki Terpstra – for whom the previous aside rings even truer – ditto the German 2015 winner John Degenkolb (Team DSM).

Now let’s look at the startlist in a more positive fashion. The in-form riders with a good shot of winning the men’s edition include two riders who have yet to add a cobblestone trophy to their busy mantlepieces – Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) and Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) – as well as a bunch of riders for whom momentum has been building during the spring campaign: Alexander Kristoff (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert), Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ), Christophe Laporte (Jumbo-Visma) and Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco).

In Colbrelli’s absence, Bahrain Victorious will put their faith in the veteran Australian Heinrich Haussler and the Milan-San Remo champion Matej Mohoric of Slovenia, although it will be worth watching Fred Wright after the British youngster impressed at Flanders. Haussler, 38, has finished in the top 10 on three occasions although evidence shows that he’s gone a little soft in his old age (he rode the Ronde in a pair of gloves, which was a first).

The team in most need of a morale-boosting win are QuickStep Alpha Vinyl. They have been a one-man band this spring with Kasper Asgreen struggling to shoulder all the burden of results. Once again the Danish rouleur will lead alongside old hands Zdenek Stybar (twice runner-up in the Roubaix velodrome) and Yves Lampaert.

Filippo Ganna making his long-awaited Roubaix debut for Ineos Grenadiers is a mouth-watering prospect for a nicely maturing team that also includes Flanders runner-up Dylan van Baarle, Amstel Gold winner Michal Kwiatkowski, and the promising young duo of Ben Turner and Magnus Sheffield, not to mention cobble veteran Luke Rowe.

EF Education-EasyPost will put their faith in the equally experienced Lowlander duo of Sebastian Langeveld and Jens Keukeleire, while their former rider Sep Vanmarcke will spearhead Israel-Premier Tech’s unlikely assault on a cobblestone trophy.

Other outsiders worth keeping an eye out for include Oliver Naesen (Ag2R-Citroen), Jasper Stuyven and Quinn Simmons (both Trek-Segafredo), Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe), Mike Teunissen (Jumbo-Visma), Hugo Hofstetter (Arkea-Samsic), Luke Durbridge (BikeExchange-Jayco), Imanol Erviti (Movistar), Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) and last year’s surprise runner-up, Florian Vermeersch (Lotto Soudal). There is no place for last year's animator Gianni Moscon (Astana) who has been struggling for form and fitness since his winter switch from Ineos Grenadiers.

A new champion is guaranteed the second ever Paris-Roubaix Femmes owing to the absence of the inaugural champion Lizzie Deignan, who is pregnant with her second child. Trek-Segafredo will put their eggs in Elisa Longo Borghini’s basket although the Italian will face stiff opposition from Dutch veteran Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) who beat her to second place on the podium in 2021.

Fourth last year, Lisa Brennauer (Ceratizit-WNT) has been sidelined with Covid, but the remainder of last year’s top 10 should be in the mix once again: Marta Bastianelli (UAE Team ADQ), Emma Norsgaard (Movistar), Franziska Koch (Team DSM), Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo), Chantal Van den Broek-Blaak (Team SD Worx) and last Sunday’s Amstel Gold winner Marta Cavalli (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope).

It would be remiss not to throw into the mix world champion Elisa Balsamo and Ellen Van Dijk (both Trek-Segafredo), Coryn Labecki (Jumbo-Visma), the prolific Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM), Belgian champion Lotte Kopecky (Team SD Worx) and Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-Sram).

Starting in Compiegne (a good 80 kilometres north of central Paris), the men’s route is 257.2km long and features 54.8km of cobbles over 30 sectors of varying difficulty. After an opening two hours played out on smooth, flat asphalt, the first cobblestone sector at Troisvilles-Inchy comes with just over 160km remaining while the first of three five-star sectors, the infamous Trouee d’Arenberg, comes with 95km left to ride.

Almost 3km long and hemmed in by barriers and dense forest, the Arenberg is arguably the most significant test of the day and always plays a pivotal role as the riders jostle for positions and the peloton ramps up to breakneck speed on the downhill approach ahead of the dangerous bottleneck entry into a sector which has claimed numerous victims over the years – most notably Johan Museeuw, whose horrific fall in the mud in 1998 shattered his kneecap. The subsequent infection of gangrene nearly forced doctors to amputate his left leg.

The two remaining five-star sectors of pavé are Mons-en-Pevele (with 48.6km to go) and the Carrefour de l’Arbre (17.2km from the finish). The former is almost 3km long and features some of the most brutal cobbles of the race, while the latter is 2km long and presents the last chance for riders to strike out ahead of the finish – since the last three sectors won’t cause anyone to soil their bibs.

As usual, the riders will enter the velodrome at Roubaix for one and a half laps before a finish which has witnessed some tight sprints in recent years involving the likes of Colbrelli, Sagan and the Australian veteran Mat Hayman, whose rip-roaring win to deny Tom Boonen a record fifth triumph in 2016 remains one of the most memorable editions of the past decade.

As per the inaugural edition last year, the second Paris-Roubaix Femmes skips the long preamble from Compiegne and starts in Denain, just 50km south of Roubaix. It features 17 cobblestone sectors over an intense 124.7km route. There is something of a preamble in a local circuit around the start town, which the riders will tackle on four occasions – one more than last year – before heading towards the first cobble sector, with 82.5km to go.

While there is still no Arenberg Forest for the women, the five-star sections of Mons-en-Pevele and Carrefour de l’Arbre are included on an identical run into Roubaix as the men’s race.

While the heart has visions of debutant Filippo Ganna tearing up the pavé in a pulverising solo attack in the mould of Boonen or Cancellara in their pomp, the head can’t see the in-form Mathieu van der Poel letting this one slip after he hashed his lines last year in the velodrome.

There will be a big question mark over the form of Wout van Aert after missing the past fortnight because of Covid, so Van der Poel’s main threat may come from a plucky outsider in the mould of Florian Vermeersch, who surprised everyone last year on his way to finishing between Sonny Colbrelli and the Dutchman on the podium. Could Filippo Ganna – a far more renowned and celebrated rider – play the Vermeersch role in 2022? It’s possible.

Switzerland’s Stefan Kung, Denmark’s Mads Pedersen and Norway’s Alexander Kristoff are showing too good form to overlook. All three could be there in the business end along with Van der Poel, Van Aert, Ganna and the versatile Milan-San Remo winner Matej Mohoric. What happens after that is anyone’s guess – but no one would be overly surprised if it involved Van Aert’s challenge petering out as his old foe Van der Poel went on to complete a memorable Flanders-Roubaix double.

One sideshow that will be interesting to follow is the advanced technology on display. After a dropper post perhaps made the difference in Milan-San Remo, will the in-race tyre pressure management system being used by Team DSM – which will allow John Degenkolb and his team-mates to adjust their tyre pressure while riding – have a say on the outcome?

In the women’s edition, no one would begrudge Marianne Vos the victory she would surely have secured last year were Lizzie Deignan not on such a good day. The same mistakes will surely not be made, and a rider of Deignan’s calibre won’t be allowed up the road to build up such a commanding lead.

Vos has ridden sparingly this season – just three appearances to date – and while the 34-year-old has no wins, she had been in the mix on each occasion. But watch out for the Belgian champion Kopecky – like Van der Poel, she too will be eyeing an historic Flanders-Roubaix double. A double-double over Easter weekend? Stranger and less likely things have happened.