It wasn’t possible, Tom Boonen hasn’t been able to win his fifth Tour of Qatar. Despite his double stage win -which makes a total of 22-, Niki Terpstra’s successful breakaway and the newly introduced Individual Time Trial have cost him the victory in a race he keeps an idyll with for a long time, but, being the Tour of Qatar just a try-out, it didn’t really hurt, especially as the final victory was held by his Dutch teammate. Because Qatar is, above it all, a training. A very good training for the Spring Classics, as most of the greatest Classics’ specialists meet there due to the perfect conditions of the race such as the wind, the echelons, the shoulder-to-shoulder fight, the broken bunchs, the teamwork and the reduced sprints.
Cyclist suffer in February to pick up, later in March and April, the results of their hard work. And Tom Boonen understood that since the very first moment, as he just missed only last year’s race after a troubled Winter preparation. Coincidence or not, there’s a curious correlation between the Arabic race and his Monuments, namely, Milano – Sanremo, De Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris – Roubaix.
@cobblesandhills
If he wins Qatar, he wins a Monument
2006, 2008, 2009 & 2012
This is probably the most overwhelming fact among the ones showed here, and the easiest to analyze when it comes to explain the relation between the Qatari race and the Spring Monuments. Some riders prefer waiting a little longer to reach their peak, so they decide to make as less noise as possible during the races on the Middle East, being their participation based on economical interests rather than strictly sportive facts, while others, as Tom Boonen, face it differently.
A race that suits him perfectly and his extraordinary competitive nature are reasons enough to fight for the victory a month and a half before his big goals of the season, such as his best bunch sprint efforts, like in the good old days he’s now trying to get back. A long maintained effort becomes a success. Just this simple, when Tom Boonen has triumphed in Qatar has also triumphed on the Spring Classics, in RvV’06, PR’08, PR’09 and RvV’12&PR’12, his second doublet; a count that could be bigger, hadn’t he gave away MSR’06 to Filippo Pozzato.
If he wins Qatar, his team wins De Ronde
2006, 2008, 2009 & 2012
So, it’s obvious that everytime Tom Boonen is strong on middle February, he’ll be strong during the first weeks of April. And when Tommeke is strong there’s a race where his silhouette alone injects fear into his opponents. De Ronde van Vlaanderen. His race. He went there in 2006 wearing the rainbow jersey, with the number 1 on his back and his first Tour of Qatar on his record, and he didn’t fail, there he was, on the finish line with Leif Hoste, who was thundered on the sprint.
Then came 2008 and 2009, when in two almost identical editions Stijn Devolder took advantage of the infinite tactical superiority Boonen’s simple presence infused to get the biggest two successes on his career, two big successes that many people still think should had belonged to Tom Boonen, who anyway recovered himself winning a week later on Roubaix Velodrome both years. That’s how we get to 2012, a year when Tom Boonen became Tom van Vlaanderen when he reached Deman, Buysse, Magni, Leman y Museeuw getting his third victory by beating Pippo Pozzato and Alessandro Ballan just one week before becoming a legend on the Velodrome equalling De Vlaeminck’s successes with his fourth Roubaix victory.
photo: reuters
If he gets to the podium, there’s no Monument…
2004, 2007 & 2010
It was the year 2004 when a young Tom Boonen had just found his place on the peloton. After his spectacular performance on Paris-Roubaix two years earlier, when he took George Hincapie’s role in the race after the American suffered one of his many setbacks, there he was: a young 23-year-old cyclist on the top. Everybody was talking about that incredible project of Classics rider who had also amazing skills when he had to fight for bunch sprints. But he was still a little bit unexperienced on that field, so Robbie Hunter and Robbie McEwen, much more expert than him, shared most of the bonus seconds and the Southafrican got the final victory, the same softness that cost him the chance to win his first Monument. Different was the scenario on 2007 and 2010, when he was on the podium next to the winner, as one breakaway decided each edition in favour of Wilfred Crestekns and Wouter Mol -plus Geert Steurs-, two big surprises that kept him away of two victories that would have been of his own.
… but that’s how he gets to the podium in Sanremo
2007 & 2010
Much smaller was the surprise when he was just one step away of winning La Classicissima, probably the biggest miss in his career record, as it’s a big empty spot for such an important rider like him. Anyway, both years he was really close to the victory, one more reason to check his good form in Qatar, as this good form was also shown on March’s third Saturday. But in Via Roma he had to deal both times with a Cantabrian rider for whom Milano-Sanremo was always marked in red on the calendar, Óscar Freire.
On Freire’s first victory, when Boonen wasn’t able to stay in the bunch during the climb to the Poggio, he was Erik Zabel’s executioner, as he did again to the Belgian in 2007, relegating him to the third place, and in 2010 when he was second. The same place he got weeks later in Flanders, when in a legendary face-to-face Fabian Cancellara dropped him at the Kapelmuur.
2005, the exception
Tom Boonen is a legend. Equalling the leaders in the historic of victories on Paris-Roubaix (4) and De Ronde van Vlaanderen (3) and being the most laureated man ever on cobbled Monuments (7), the Belgian has another special fact on his register: he is the only rider ever adding the World Championship to the Spring cobbled doublet.
That milestone dates from 2005, the year he won his two first Monuments and a year when, paradoxically, he didn’t get the victory at Qatar, as Team CSC gave Tommeke his own medicine, isolating him from his team during the early kilometres of the third stage and then playing their chances perfectly with Lars Michaelsen and Matti Breschel while Guidi, Brunn Eriksen, Lombardi and Bak, who controlled the little group so their teammates could run away from Boonen, who finished more than five minutes away from them.
photo: AFP
A bad year in Qatar, a bad season
2011 & 2013
If the first fact here offered “If he wins Qatar, he wins a Monument” is evident, this one isn’t less. Two have been the black years for Tom Boonen during his career, 2011 and 2013, two seasons he contended the Spring Classics and couldn’t reach the podium in any of the three Monuments, and those years his performance in Qatar wasn’t good either. In 2011 it was a puncture in a critical moment which denied him the chance to fight for the final victory, but his image on the chase behind the typical jeep cars we saw during Tour of Qatar made many people think he would be at his top on April. Ultimately, though, he wasn’t, and despite winning his second Gent-Wevelgem he saw himself defeated in a year where four of the five Monuments were won by outsiders.
Two bad years, but 2013 was bad in a different way. An infection took him to the operation room to have a surgery on his elbow, so Oman took Qatar’s place during his preparation. His results were poor, the feelings not good at all for the upcoming main goals of the season, and after a few weeks they were confirmed when he abandoned Milano – Sanremo due to the bad weather conditions and later De Ronde due to a crash in the first hour of race. He couldn’t get on his bike for a long time and at the end of the year there was not doubt, it had been his worst season ever.
What if he’s second in Qatar and a teammate wins?
2007
This is the current situation during 2014. Niki Terpstra has won the race and Tom Boonen pleased himself with a double stage win and the second place in the General Classification, something similar to his results in 2007 when Wilfred Crestkens found himself in the breakaway on the fifth stage. He was the best on the overall classification due to the opening Team Time Trial and his presence on every move QuickStep – Innergetic played, so at the end he got the golden jersey in Doha. That year’s summary for Boonen is simple, podium at Milano-Sanremo and double dissapointment on the cobblestones, although months later he added Tour de France’s green jersey plus two stages to his trophy collection.
Bonus Track, let’s talk about the Worlds
It’s impossible to talk about Tom Boonen and Qatar without focusing on 2016, on the Cycling World Championship which the Arabic Emirate will hold. Those Worlds are foreseen really similar to the same main factors riders face when they visit the country, flat routes, desert, wind and good roads, the very same scenario Boonen has triumphed in during all this time. Rumours say the race will be during October, by the time the Belgian will turn 36, a considerable age, although knowing his love story with Qatar it’s not up to us to underrate his chances more than two years and a half away from that moment.