Former world champion Tom Boonen will be among the Belgians feeling the weight of expectation going into Sunday’s edition of Paris-Roubaix, arguably the toughest one-day cycling race in the world.

The 26-year-old Belgian has already won once at the “Hell of the North,” as the 111-year-old race is known. But given his frustrating run through the Belgian one-day classics this month, Boonen and compatriots Leif Hoste and Peter Van Petegem will be eager to redress the balance.

The three are among a handful of contenders — including defending Roubaix champion Fabian Cancellara and Italians Alessandro Ballan and Filippo Pozzato — who possess some of the many ingredients that go into taming one of cycling's mythical races.

(Be sure to check in for live coverage beginning at 7:30 a.m. (Eastern time in the U.S) on Sunday —Editor)

Last year, Cancellara proved the strongest of a battered and bruised bunch when he escaped late in the race to finish alone in the Roubaix velodrome.

Boonen hopes to overcome the frustrations he's experienced this past week.

Photo: Agence France Presse

Having fine-tuned his form during Ballan's finish-line victory over Hoste at the Tour of Flanders last Sunday, Switzerland's reigning world time trial champion says he is confident.

"I only needed this race to be ready for (Paris-Roubaix)," said Cancellara after finishing out of contention at Flanders. "But I know I will be ready."

The CSC team is hoping for a rare double in Roubaix, but the team’s hopes for rainy weather have been scuppered by the predictions of sunny skies.

That is likely to give ideas to a larger-than-usual crop of hopefuls, but whatever happens, the Belgians will get a rough ride from Cancellara, Ballan and the new kid on the block, Marcus Burghardt of Germany, who won Wednesday’s famed semi-classic, Ghent-Wevelgem.

"My legs are there, and so is the desire," said Ballan, who was promoted to third place last year when three riders, including Hoste, were disqualified for breaching a closed railway crossing in the final 10km. "There's no pressure. It will be others who feel the pressure."

Despite the anticipated sunny weather, some riders have opted to avoid the race and its treacherous 28 sections of cobblestones, totaling 57km. (see a complete of cobbles below. —Editor).

Spaniard Oscar Freire, a three-time world champion and two-time winner of Milan-San Remo, will be among those watching the six-hour epic from the comfort of his armchair.

"It's true that if you don't go, you don't win. But I did it once in my first year as a professional and I crashed. And if you crash, you're out for a while," Freire said after his third-place finish in Ghent-Wevelgem.

Freire added that “too much” of Roubaix depends on good fortune.

Indeed, some of the peloton’s most talented riders have had their share of bad luck here. Former three-time winner Johan Museeuw, dubbed the “Lion of Flanders,” famously crashed in the famed Arenberg Forest sector in 1998. As he fought off gangrene and the threat of losing his leg, he threatened to quit the sport.

On some days even when you have the legs, a puncture at the wrong time can end it all. And sometimes the bikes are just not up to the task. American George Hincapie, absent this year due to a wrist injury, was in contention again last year until his steerer tube failed at the stem just above the headset, leading to a crash and a separated shoulder.

Risk aside, Boonen and his fellow Belgians will be gunning for a win in Roubaix. With Ballan crowned the king in Flanders and 23-year-old T-Mobile rider Burghardt the boss at Wevelgem, the Belgians will have their work cut out for them.

As Ballan savored victory in Flanders last week, Hoste finished runner-up for a third time in four years. Boonen and his Quick Step teammates, including 2003 Roubaix winner Van Petegem, failed to finish in the top 20. After being disqualified from his second-place finish in Roubaix last year, Hoste admits he has more than one score to settle.

"I will never forget that," he told Sporza. "I feel like I want to take revenge. In Roubaix it depends more on luck than in the Tour of Flanders. But if I can, I will be number one."