"Same Mindset as Always": Van der Poel Refuses the Four-Peat Narrative at His Final Pre-Roubaix Press Conference
Mathieu van der Poel walked into a packed press room at the Alpecin-Deceuninck service course just outside Compiègne on Wednesday afternoon for the final press conference of the three-time defending champion's 2026 Paris-Roubaix preparation — and spent the next twenty-eight minutes doing absolutely everything he could to refuse the narrative the 120-strong international media pack had come to write. "I am aware of the history, of course I am," Van der Poel said when the first question inevitably arrived. "But I am not approaching the race any differently than I have in the previous three years. It is the same race. It is the same route. It is the same cobbles. I am going there with the same mindset as always — to try to win it."
A fourth consecutive Paris-Roubaix victory on Sunday afternoon would lift the 31-year-old Dutchman level with Roger De Vlaeminck and Tom Boonen on four career wins — and, more remarkably, would make him the first rider in the 123-year history of the race to win four editions in succession. It is a statistic Van der Poel has been asked about on a near-daily basis for the last three months, and one he has grown visibly tired of. "Look, it is obvious that winning four is something that has never been done," he said, shifting in his seat and looking briefly across at sports director Christoph Roodhooft. "But this is not something I am thinking about between now and Sunday. This is something you ask me about next week, if it happens. For now it is Wednesday and I am focused on being ready to ride Paris-Roubaix well."
The refusal of the four-peat narrative is, of course, its own narrative. Roodhooft and Alpecin-Deceuninck's performance staff have spent the entire spring walking the tightrope between acknowledging the historical weight of what Van der Poel is attempting and protecting him from the mental cost of chasing it openly. His famous "copy-paste" preparation — identical altitude camp in Sierra Nevada, identical pre-Flanders Tirreno-Adriatico block, identical two-day cobbled recon on Tuesday and Wednesday of Roubaix week — is the physical expression of the same philosophy. "Mathieu has found a formula that works," Roodhooft said on Wednesday. "The worst thing you can do with a formula that works is change it because of something external. History is external. Pressure is external. We keep doing the same thing."
That "same thing" this week looks remarkably like the previous three. On Tuesday Van der Poel rode the final 85 kilometres of the race with Jasper Philipsen, Gianni Vermeersch and Silvan Dillier, covering the Mons-en-Pévèle, Camphin-en-Pévèle and Carrefour de l'Arbre sectors at race pace. On Wednesday morning he was back on the cobbles for an hour, this time with the full seven-rider race squad, riding the Arenberg approach and the first five sectors in full kit and race formation. And on Thursday — the only time in the week the schedule breaks from the 2023, 2024 and 2025 templates — he will ride a 90-minute openers session on the asphalt of the Compiègne forest rather than on the cobbles, because "I already know what the cobbles feel like and I do not need to remind myself three days out".
When the subject turned to his rivals, Van der Poel was noticeably warmer. On Tadej Pogačar: "I know he wants this one. I know he is on a level this spring that nobody else has ever had. And I know that the way the weather has gone, a dry Paris-Roubaix probably makes his life easier and mine harder. But I have beaten him at this race before and I can beat him again." On Wout van Aert: "Wout is riding the best Classics campaign since 2022, you cannot ignore that. He will be there on Sunday." On Mads Pedersen: "If you had told me in February that Mads would be on this start line as a favourite, I would have laughed. It is an incredible story and a huge motivation for our team because he is a rider who does not wait for the others."
The most revealing line of the afternoon came when a Belgian journalist asked whether a Pogačar-Van der Poel head-to-head with two kilometres left to Roubaix velodrome was the scenario he wanted. Van der Poel paused for four full seconds — the longest silence of the press conference — and then allowed himself the first proper smile of the day. "I want to be in the front group at Carrefour de l'Arbre with him and with Wout and with Mads and with Ganna and with Pedersen," he said. "I do not want this race to come down to a sprint against anyone on Sunday. I want to ride it the way I have ridden the last three and I want to arrive in the velodrome alone. That is how I approach this race. Same mindset as always."
He stood up, thanked the press pack in French, English and Dutch, and walked out with Roodhooft on his left shoulder and Vermeersch on his right — the same exit, through the same door, that he had walked in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Nothing had changed except the history sitting on his shoulders. On Sunday afternoon we find out whether his copy-paste philosophy has one more Hell of the North in it, and whether the 2026 Paris-Roubaix gives us a Dutchman on four wins level with the giants of the sport.