Women's Racing

Paris-Roubaix Femmes Officially Becomes a UCI Monument — What the Historic Elevation Means for Women's Cycling

CYCLING LOOKOUT • 6 APRIL 2026

In a landmark moment for women's professional cycling, the UCI has officially designated Paris-Roubaix Femmes as a Monument race on the 2026 Women's WorldTour calendar. The decision, which takes effect for the sixth edition of the race on April 12, means that the cobbled classic now sits alongside Milan-San Remo Women, the Tour of Flanders Femmes, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes in the highest category the governing body applies to its women's calendar. It is a recognition that has been building since the race's debut in 2021 and represents a formal acknowledgement of the event's extraordinary growth, prestige, and impact on the sport.

The UCI's decision carries practical consequences beyond symbolism. Monument races on the Women's WorldTour calendar now attract a significantly higher allocation of ranking points than standard WorldTour events, meaning that victory in Paris-Roubaix Femmes will carry substantially greater weight in determining the season's overall rankings standings. For riders who target the cobbled spring, this change fundamentally reshapes how teams allocate resources and plan programmes around the race. A win at Roubaix now moves the needle in a way that wins at other one-day races simply cannot match.

The elevation also reflects the race's extraordinary trajectory since its creation. Launched as a single-day event in 2021 with what many observers viewed as scepticism about whether the brutal pavé sectors were appropriate for women's racing, Paris-Roubaix Femmes immediately proved its doubters wrong. The 2021 debut produced one of the most dramatic and talked-about finishes in the sport's recent history. In subsequent years, the race grew in startlist depth, media reach, and fan engagement. The 2024 and 2025 editions, won by Lotte Kopecky and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot respectively, were broadcast to record audiences and generated global coverage that placed women's cycling at the centre of the mainstream sports conversation in a way that even optimists had not anticipated.

For the riders preparing for this Sunday's edition, the Monument designation adds another layer of significance to an already enormous occasion. Kopecky, who won the 2024 edition with a typically commanding sprint from a small breakaway group, arrives at Roubaix having just claimed a record fourth Tour of Flanders Femmes title last Sunday. A Flanders-Roubaix double in the same spring would represent one of the greatest individual achievements in women's Classics history — and she would now do it at an officially designated Monument, making the historical significance even clearer. "Every time I race Roubaix, I feel something different," Kopecky said this week. "The cobbles, the sectors, the atmosphere — it belongs in the conversation with any race in the world."

Ferrand-Prévot, defending her 2025 title and currently in career-defining form for Visma-Lease a Bike, is equally aware of what winning a Monument means for a rider's palmares. The Frenchwoman, who launched the solo attack that won last year's race from 25 kilometres out, has built her remarkable 2025 comeback narrative around collecting the biggest prizes the calendar offers. A second Roubaix Monument would establish her beyond any argument as one of the greatest one-day riders of her generation. "I know what I won last year," she said recently. "Now I know it carries even more weight. That is a motivation, not a pressure."

The 2026 edition also marks a scheduling innovation, with the women's race running on the same day as the men's for the first time. The decision by ASO was controversial in some quarters — those who had valued the women's race having its own separate day — but the UCI's Monument designation helps reframe the change. Both races on the same day means that Paris-Roubaix becomes a full weekend of Monument-level racing, with the velodrome at Roubaix the stage for two historic finishes rather than one. Television broadcasters have responded with expanded coverage, and fan attendance at the velodrome is expected to reach record levels for both finishes.

As Sunday approaches, the Monument status serves as a reminder of how far women's professional cycling has travelled in a short space of time. The Hell of the North — once considered too brutal, too dangerous, too unpredictable for a women's race — is now an official Monument. The riders who cross the finish line in the velodrome this Sunday will do so in the knowledge that they have won one of the sport's most hallowed prizes. For a race that did not exist six years ago, that is a transformation that deserves to be celebrated.

Paris-Roubaix Femmes Officially Becomes a UCI Monument — What the Historic Elevation Means for Women's Cycling

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