Franziska Koch denies Marianne Vos to win Paris-Roubaix Femmes in velodrome sprint

FDJ United-Suez's brilliant season continued as Franziska Koch outsprinted Marianne Vos in the velodrome to win Paris-Roubaix Femmes.

The German 25-year-old beat the greatest women's cyclist of all time by half-a-wheel length after animating the race throughout.

Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot finished third, as Visma – just over an hour after the Dutch team won the men's race through Wout van Aert – failed to make their numerical advantage count.

Koch, Vos and Ferrand-Prévot were together at the front of the race with around 50km to go, and despite Koch repeatedly trying to get rid of the Visma pair, the race was eventually settled with a sprint in the mythical velodrome, which Koch narrowly prevailed in.

Lotte Kopecky, a previous winner of the race, finished fourth, 90 seconds behind Koch.

Victory for Koch is by far her biggest of her career, after previously only winning one other race (a stage of the 2019 Boels Ladies Tour) aside from two national titles.

Since moving from Picnic PostNL in the winter, Koch has been in inspired form, placing third at Strade-Bianche, fifth at Omloop Nieuwsblad, and also scoring top-10s at Dwars door Vlaanderen and the Tour of Flanders. Winning Roubaix, the most legendary one-day race of all, rounds off an incredible spring for the 25-year-old.

Defeat for Vos, however, will sting, as Roubaix is the only race that the 38-year-old has yet to win.

In the five editions of the race that she has competed in, she's now finished second and fourth twice.

Ferrand-Prévot, meanwhile, finished on the podium for the second successive weekend, after placing second at last week's Tour of Flanders, but the Frenchwoman hasn't won a race since triumphing at last August's Tour de France Femmes.

How it happened

Raced over 143km from Denain to Roubaix, Maria Rosa Klöser of Canyon-Sram zondacrypto was the only rider in the day’s breakaway, holding an advantage of just over a minute with 100km remaining. With 75km left, however, Klöser was back in the group, with Visma-Lease a Bike and SD Worx-Protime doing most of the pulling at the front of the peloton.

On the five-star Mons-en-Pévèle sector – just over 50km from the finish – no attacks were forthcoming, but almost immediately afterwards Koch accelerated, bringing with her SD Worx’s Blanka Vas and two from Visma: Ferrand-Prévot and Vos. The four worked well together and quickly developed a lead of around 35 seconds.

Kopecky, winner of the race in 2024, was in the group behind, as was Lorena Wiebes, but with their teammate Vas up ahead they were in no hurry to close the gap, meaning that the leading four soon had a lead of one minute, 30 seconds.

With 24km left, Koch – a week after she was an invaluable help for teammate Demi Vollering at the Tour of Flanders – attacked with Vos jumping on her wheel. Ferrand-Prévot hung around 50m off the back of the pair before eventually catching back on, but Vas was unable to keep pace and fell away.

Behind, Wiebes attacked from the peloton, but with so little distance left it seemed likely that the winner was to come from either the Visma pair or Koch.

Ferrand-Prévot kept losing the wheel of Vos and Koch as the latter accelerated, but the Frenchwoman refused to be distanced for good. Towards the end of the five-star Carrefour de l’Arbre, Vos attempted to shake Koch from her wheel but neither was the German in any mood to be anywhere else but the head of the race.

Kopecky brought Megan Jastrab of UAE Team ADQ with her to form a chasing group behind, yet with over a minute to cut and the hardest cobble sections done with, the velodrome was set for a three-up sprint to determine the winner.

With 4.5km to go, though, Koch went on the attack, no doubt fearful of Vos’s apparent superior sprint. She managed to drop Ferrand-Prévot once again, but Ferrand-Prévot would not be beaten that easily: on the final sector, with just two kilometres left, the reigning champion was back, ensuring the race would definitely be decided by a three-way sprint.

As they entered the velodrome, Visma had the cards to play: one option was that Ferrand-Prévot would go on the attack to draw Koch out which could open the door to the favourite Vos.

But Ferrand-Prévot seemed to accept that third place was hers and that the winner would be either Koch or Vos. In the final 100m Vos began to gain on the inside of Koch, but the German narrowly held on for a superb victory.

Result: Paris-Roubaix Femmes 2026

1. Franziska Koch (Ger) FDJ United-Suez, in 3:30.16
2. Marianne Vos (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike, at same time
3. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike, at 6s
4. Lotte Kopecky (Bel) SD Worx-Protime, at 1:30
5. Megan Jastrab (USA) UAE Team ADQ, at same time
6. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) SD Worx-Protime
7. Charlotte Kool (Ned) Fenix-Premier Tech
8. Lara Gillespie (Irl) UAE Team ADQ
9. Arlenis Sierra (Cub) Movistar
10. Lucinda Brand (Ned) Lidl-Trek, all at same time.