The excitement building over Cyclocross World Champion Mathieu van der Poel's road season ambitions ratcheted up a notch Monday as his team Alpecin were officially invited to Paris-Roubaix.

Known as the 'Hell of the North' with its bone-jarring and often treacherously slippery cobbled sections, Paris-Roubaix is one of the most highly anticipated events on the cycling calendar. The 2020 edition will air on April 12, which is also Easter Sunday.

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The 25-year-old Van der Poel is a double world champion of the cyclo-cross discipline, but his dominance has transferred to many disciplines of the sport. 2019 saw van der Poel achieve remarkable success on the cross country mountain bike circuit, as well as putting together one of the most talked about inaugural road seasons, perhaps ever. 

He won the reputed Amstel Gold classic in Belgium in 2019, receiving wide acclaim for a late surge, before also winning the Tour of Britain.

His brave bid to win the rain-drenched road race world championships in Yorkshire just fell short in September, when from a position of strength he suddenly ran out of steam.

Now that his team Alpecin have been, as expected, handed a wildcard entry to Paris-Roubaix, his presence will raise the profile of an event which attracts around two million viewers in France.

"I always watch the whole thing on television," van der Poel said of the 260km epic. 

"I'd like to race a wet Paris-Roubaix with rain, cobbles and mud, it'd be wonderful," he said in December.

Van der Poel is the grandson of the recently deceased Raymond Poulidor, beloved of the French public after coming second on the Tour de France three times but never winning it.

At the Tokyo Games in July, van der Poel intends to represent the Netherlands in the mountain bike race at Mount Fuji.

Before that, he looks set to race several one-day classics including Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, the Amstel Gold race and La Fleche Wallonne, as well as Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Catalunya stage races.