There aren't many things that Tadej Pogačar can't do. The world champion won the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia in the same year, winning the World Championships too; he has won all sorts of one-day races, from Strade Bianche to Liège-Bastogne-Liège, via the Tour of Flanders. Save for winning a bunch sprint - and he'd probably have a go - he is the ultimate all rounder.
However, there is one thing that many people think is beyond the UAE Team Emirates rider: winning Paris-Roubaix. The Slovenian is, by his nature, a slight man, not the heavier type of cyclist that has always performed well at Roubaix - he is not Mathieu van der Poel, Fabian Cancellara, or Tom Boonen. If Pogačar was anyone else, it would be simple to rule him out of the running. It is the kind of race that other GC riders would never try, let alone go for the win.
Pogačar is not like other riders though, and as ridiculous as it sounds, you can't rule him out for the Hell of the North. It wasn't thought to be on his programme for this year, and yet a video posted on his Instagram on Monday afternoon suggested this might change - in the short clip Pogačar is shown riding the Trouée d'Arenberg, probably the toughest sector of cobbles at Paris-Roubaix, one of three five-star sectors.
His friend - and twice runner up at Roubaix - Jasper Philipsen, commented "please not". That might be how many of his rivals feel, especially with the knowledge of how well he performed on the cobbles at the 2022 Tour de France, even if that was without the Arenberg.
Perhaps it's just for fun, a bit of light trolling of everyone, but Pogačar is also the kind of person to look for a challenge, especially as his 2024 saw him win pretty much everything he tried to. He is already set to target the Classics again, with Flanders back on his calendar for the first time again since he won two years ago, so what would one more week in northern Europe hurt?
"It's not a final decision [to skip it] and maybe I can still do it, but I don’t think it suits me the very best and there is still time to go to do it another year," Pogačar said at his training camp in December.
"I really like to do the Classics. In 2023 I had a really great Classics season until I crashed. I want to go back to the cobbles at least a few more times in my career. It doesn’t matter if I have the world champion's [rainbow] stripes or not, I like to do them."
Other than the fact that he is not blessed with the body type of those who usually thrive at Paris-Roubaix, riding one of the most brutal races would also bring with it the risk of incident and injury which could derail his season. The 26-year-old is ultimately targeting the Tour de France once again, and the World Championships, so any interruption this early in April could seriously impact bigger goals. However, he has already won enough that he probably could gamble. If not now, maybe next year.
We will have to see Pogačar in action at Roubaix to seriously judge whether he could win the race, and add yet another Monument to his collection, but you can't rule the whole affair out. After all, it's Tadej's world, and we're just living in it.
