When Franziska Koch won Germany’s junior omnium title in 2017, she wouldn’t have imagined that those same track skills would carry her to an improbable Paris-Roubaix Femmes victory almost a decade later.
The 25-year-old outfoxed two of the greatest riders of this generation, Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, a Visma-Lease a Bike pairing with 29 world titles between them, to bag her biggest career win to date on Sunday.
The crowd, huddled around the outdoor velodrome, let out a collective gasp on the bike throw. Koch wasn’t supposed to win, this wasn’t in the script – how could a rider with only one previous WorldTour scalp beat the world’s best, all by herself?
“This is a victory for a hard-working underdog,” said Stephen Delcourt, Koch’s FDJ United-SUEZ manager, who watched with his hands on his head as she roared around the velodrome.
“We knew she was capable of winning, but she still found herself up against the two GOATs of our sport,” Delcourt said. “She was eager to give it a shot; she was quite vocal on the radio, saying, ‘I'm not afraid to hurt them. I feel strong.’”
So who is Franziska Koch? And why, as unexpected as it may seem, was she destined to win in Roubaix?
“I come from a cycling family,” Koch said in her winner’s press conference, “even my grandparents raced their bikes themselves. My parents met at a race as well, so cycling was always a big thing in my family.”
Born in the northwest German town of Mettmann, an hour’s drive from the Dutch border, Koch rode her first bike race when she was nine years old.
“I grew up really multi-disciplined. I did everything. I did mountain biking, and track in the winter a little bit,” she said, leaving out the fact she was national champion in both as a junior. “I think that helped me have good bike skills, and those are definitely needed here.”
Two years after her junior success, Koch joined Team Sunweb, and in her fifth race with the squad, took a shock stage win at the Boels Ladies Tour, aged 19 – the second youngest rider in the race.
Over the next six years, however, as the team morphed into Team DSM and Picnic PostNL, Koch found her chances limited, her role focused on domestique duties. She left the roster at the end of last season, and has since found renewed form at FDJ United-SUEZ – “I think a happy athlete is a good athlete, and the whole team is working really well together," she said.
The evidence is in the results. In the last few months alone, Koch has finished fifth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, third at Strade Bianche, and tenth at the Tour of Flanders, each time while riding in support of Demi Vollering. Her own opportunity, and a big win, seemed only a matter of time.
“She’s such a strong rider,” said Ferrand-Prévot, last year’s Paris-Roubaix winner, and this year’s third-place finisher. “To see what she did in Flanders for Demi, she pulled so much at the front in the cobblestones. She’s a monster, she’s really, really strong. I know how strong she was. I was not sure about her sprint, but now I know.”
Koch herself acknowledged that she’s not a “pure sprinter – but I can still have a good punch at the end of a hard race”. It’s a kick that has carried her to two German national road titles, in 2024 and 2025, and now her first Monument.
“It’s unbelievable. I was always dreaming of winning this race,” she said. “The team was really believing in me, that I was in a great shape, and to finish it off today was just amazing.”
Amazing, too, was the sight of Koch on the podium. As the German national anthem played over the loud speakers, she stood tall and smiled to the crowds, a step higher than the two yellow jerseys – both with rainbow piping – flanking her either side. Koch had beaten the world’s best. Now the world knows who she is.
