He's a rare sort of Flemish Belgian, a Flemish Belgian with a coal coloured complexion, up with the birds and in bed just after sunset, simply to enjoy the beauty of the sun and to meditate. Last year, Peter Van Petegem, the dark skinned and dark haired Belgian, fired imaginations. Within the space of eight days he accomplished what no-one else had managed to achieve in the last quarter of a century, in the last twenty six years to be exact: he won two mythical competitions, one after the other, the Tour of Flanders and the “Queen of the Classics”, the Paris-Roubaix. An exploit that took us back in time to the era of Roger De Vlaeminck, the tightrope walker, who won this race four times over, a feat accomplished through a combination of sheer willpower, malice and luck. A rider described so well by the journalist François Simon as: “A monument of the 21^st Century riding at breakneck speed over Roman roads”.

Rooted in our memory and yet still so alive today, the Paris-Roubaix, the third round in the UCI World Cup, will once again this year, as in 2003, provide its “officiating members”, as referred to by Jacques Goddet, with a race of twenty six cobblestone sections. An innovation to be noted in the 2004 edition: the Mons-en-Pévèle portion of the race will be lengthened by two kilometres, making it three thousand metres in total in length: this will be one of the longest parts of this 102^nd edition, after the Quiévy and Hornaing sections. These are new cobblestone sections whose renown will perhaps one day be equal to that of the famous Arenberg forest section and the section of the race known as the “Carrefour de l'Arbre” (Tree Crossroads).

At the start in Compiègne, not all of the riders will be dreaming of victory a few hours later in the Roubaix velodrome, but all of them - each in his own way and at his own rhythm - will contribute a small part to a living legend.