Boonen Archives - Irish Peloton

March 31, 2017

Cobbled Classics – Doubles, Trebles and one Quadruple

For the purposes of this exercise the ‘cobbled classics’ are one of the following races: Het Volk (yes it’s still ‘Volk’, always will be), Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, E3 Prijs, Ghent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. We can argue about what constitutes a classic until the cows come home. Call Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne or Dwars Door Vlaanderen a semi-classic if you like, but this is the seven I’ve chosen to go with.

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March 20, 2015

Milan San Remo Tune-up

Which is the best race to ride yourself into form for Milan San Remo? Is it Paris-Nice? Or is it Tirreno-Adriatico?

While the respective race organisers ASO and RCS try to tempt the major G.C. riders to their races, the classics stars are also faced with a choice of how best to prepare for the first monument classic of the season.

Take a look at the results of Milan San Remo for the last few years and it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that Paris-Nice provides the better preparation. Last year’s winner Alexander Kristoff was present at the French race as were the winners of the 2012 and 2011 editions, Simon Gerrans and Matt Goss.

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September 13, 2013

The Most Versatile Classics Rider in Cycling

So which rider is the most versatile classics rider in the current peloton? Who has what it takes across all five of cycling’s hardest one day races, the monument classics?

If we are to judge simply on the number of wins in these five races, it has been a ding dong battle for supremacy for the last few years between Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen. Boonen has four Paris-Roubaixs and three Tours of Flanders, both records. While Cancellara’s total of six victories are spread between those two same races along with a single win in Milan San Remo.

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February 18, 2013

Cavendish and Milan San Remo – An Air of Inevitability

“I’m not looking forward to Milan San Remo, it’s not really a race for me anymore.”

So says Mark Cavendish, professional cyclist and professional bullshitter. The world’s best sprinter uttered these words in the aftermath of the Tour of Qatar which he won overall along with four stages and the points classification. And he was only there in the first place as a last minute replacement for the injured Tom Boonen.

Cavendish may want all of his rivals to believe that Milan San Remo is not a season goal of his, but the facts tell a different story – that he has never been in better shape at this stage of the season.

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April 10, 2012

Boonen vs De Vlaeminck and the undeserved victory

Tom Boonen is the first rider to ever win the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix double twice. He is the only rider to have ever won Ghent-Wevelgem, Flanders and Roubaix in the same year and he is the only rider to have won Flanders and Roubaix a combined total of seven times.

He won the latest edition of the Hell of the North by attacking with more than 50km to go and soloing the entire way to the finish. Nobody could get close to him. It was a stunning display of strength and confidence despite of (and quite possibly because of) the fact that without the presence of Fabian Cancellara, he was the outstanding favourite.

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October 7, 2011

World champion team-mates

By winning the World Championship road race in Denmark, Mark Cavendish became only the second British rider to wear the rainbow jersey after Tom Simpson in 1965. But this coming weekend the world’s best sprinter has a chance to achieve what no rider, Brit or otherwise, has ever achieved – win Paris-Tours as World Champion.

Unlike most other one-day races, the World Championships road race takes place on a different route every year. Often it is won by riders who could be classed as ‘sprinters’. To illustrate, recent winners of the rainbow jersey include Mario Cipollini, Oscar Freire, Tom Boonen, Thor Hushovd and now Mark Cavendish.

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