Mathieu van der Pol used luck, fitness, and "racing like a junior" to take his fourth Monument win in Paris-Roubaix on Sunday afternoon.

The 28-year-old rode aggressively throughout the 257-km race, breaking into the lead at Allenberg with 94 km to go.

Nevertheless, Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo), Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), and his eternal rival Wout Van Aert (Jumbo Visma) were among those in the lead group of seven, many of them in the final five-star Carrefour de Larbre sector, was wiped out. Van Aert, however, had the misfortune of exiting the sector with a punctured rear tire.

Luck was involved, but strength came from the first Allenberg move and several others that followed. The junior style of racing, with nonstop moves and a series of attacks, also worked in Van der Pol's favor, he said.

"Again, there was no breakaway, and I raced like a junior from start to finish," van der Pol said at the post-race press conference. In the post-race press conference, Van der Pol said, "It was a crazy race, but not bad for me.

"I enjoyed it, and like I said before, it's not bad for me because it makes the race really difficult. But it's strange, the last few years I've been running as fast as I can from the beginning to the end. I don't know for sure, but it was incredibly fast."

"All the spectators enjoyed the acceleration of the champions on the cobbled sections of Auxy-à-Berce, Mont-en-Pevere, and Pont Thibault-à-Enouvrein.

"I felt pretty good, but when I saw the names of the riders in front of me, I wouldn't just drop them. I tried to attack a couple of times to make the final hard. But in the end I had some luck and I had the legs to do it."

Apart from van der Pol's eventual victory in the Roubaix velodrome with a 46-second lead over teammate Jasper Philipsen, the big story of the day was the bad luck of Van Aert and John Degenkolb (Team DSM).

The German, who won in 2015 and looked to be in great form again this time, ran out of road after running into a ditch and crashed on the Carrefour de l'Arbre after Philipsen and Van der Pol in front of him collided with a spectator as they crossed the cobbles.

Van Earle, on the other hand, appeared to be the only one to attack Van der Pol until he hit his rear wheel hard a few meters before the end of the sector.

"I haven't seen the footage yet, so I'll have to watch it," Van der Pol said of Degenkolb's crash. 'I don't know if it was my fault, if I had contact with a spectator, if I hit him. If it was my fault, I'm sorry, but it was unintentional and it happened during the race.

"It was definitely a defining moment. It was really, really unlucky for Wout. But as I said before, you need luck as well as good legs, and today he had both. But if he hadn't had a flat tire, the race would have been a lot different."[23

With victories in the 2020 and 2022 Tours of Flanders and last month's Milan-San Remo, Van der Pol has won more Monument titles than anyone else in the peloton.

We may have to wait nearly a year to witness van der Pol's splendor again in the Spring Classic, but the biggest stage will welcome him again in the summer.