Tears of a champion: How Wout van Aert finally conquered Paris-Roubaix

Now and only now does Wout Van Aert have his plaque in the showers – one of cycling’s quirkier traditions – as a Paris-Roubaix winner.Stood weeping in the centre of the velodrome, the wavering lines on the Belgian’s face are filled with dust, his cheeks caked in mud, his legs stained with oil. Ten minutes away from the Flandrian border, this body is the body of the region itself. No shower can take that away, no matter how mythologised its water.Advertisement