{"id":630347,"date":"2025-12-13T15:16:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/630347\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T15:16:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T15:16:23","slug":"michael-valgren-seeks-revenge-for-a-tainted-paris-roubaix-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/630347\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Valgren seeks revenge for a tainted Paris-Roubaix debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2021 Paris-Roubaix was a special race for many reasons. As the most recent edition that can be truly titled as &#8220;muddy&#8221;, it wrote many incredible stories. From the unlucky Gianni Moscon, through epic sprint win of <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/sonny-colbrelli\" title=\"Sonny Colbrelli\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sonny Colbrelli<\/a>, to <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/michael-valgren\" title=\"Michael Valgren\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Valgren<\/a>&#8216;s, uh, abandon.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his moderate success on Flemish cobbles, including a bronze medal at the 2021 World Championships in Leuven, Valgren has never participated in Paris-Roubaix until that year. With an edition uniquely placed in October rather than the traditional April, the Dane thought it would be a good time to test himself on the Hell of the North. And what an experience it was.<\/p>\n<p>The race progressed normally until a halfway point when Valgren contracted sudden severe stomach problems, leaving him unable to reach the finish line.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I shit my pants, literally. That was almost the reason I had to leave,&#8221; he says in the podcast Bak Lane with Lars Bak.<\/p>\n<p>Rematch on the horizon<\/p>\n<p>For the next four years, Valgren returned to his old habit of evading the French Monument, but 2026 will be the year of his rematch. &#8220;They had some ideas about what they wanted me to race, and that was fine,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p>Valgren expects to start his season at the Paris-Nice, with Milano-Sanremo as a back-up plan. Afterwards, he should ride the Flemish block of races with E3 Saxo Classic, Gent-Wevelgem, Dwars door Vlaanderen and Tour of Flanders, all leading up to the awaited start at Paris-Roubaix. &#8220;I&#8217;m looking forward to it. I actually think it&#8217;ll be fun again. I&#8217;ve only tried it once. It&#8217;s a crazy bike race.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And since <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/ef-education-easypost\" title=\"EF Education-EasyPost\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EF Education-EasyPost<\/a> are not the team with a strongest Classics lineup, Valgren can look forward to a relatively free role next to the young sprinter Madis Mihkels and former Tour of Flanders winner Kasper Asgreen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2021 Paris-Roubaix was a special race for many reasons. As the most recent edition that can be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,34348,195103,195102,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-630347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-ef-education-easypost","10":"tag-michael-valgren","11":"tag-sonny-colbrelli","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115712922959743378","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}