Tom Boonen Is Preparing for a Last Hurrah After Win at RideLondon-Surrey Classic
The moment the Tour de France ended, it became all about the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro for most involved in cycling.
Not so much for Tom Boonen.
"I have no idea," he pleasantly replies when asked if he has a prediction for the men's road race at the Games. The Tour largely passed him by too.
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It is understandable. The last days of the year's second Grand Tour were marked for Boonen by the confirmation he would be staying at longtime team Etixx–Quick-Step into 2017, allowing him to close his often glorious career with an attempt at winning a record fifth Paris-Roubaix. (His glittering palmares also includes a trio of Tour of Flanders successes, a rainbow jersey at the World Championships and multiple Tour stage victories.)
Speaking on the eve of the RideLondon-Surrey Classic, Belgian cycling's modern great was relieved to have clarified his future.
"I was kind of mixed the last few months because after Roubaix, a few teams approached me if I wanted to help them out and set up something," the 35-year-old told Bleacher Report of the deliberations that eventually led him to opt against a longer project over two years. He added that he would "stay with my original plan and stop after Paris-Roubaix.
"I think I'm still OK now after my head injury [suffered in a crash during the Abu Dhabi Tour] last year took some big energy to come back on this level. So I think I want to try to go for another really well Classics spring season and then just try to stop on a high and not really fade out—I think I will if I do another two years.
"We have a strong connection with Tom, which goes back to 2003, when our team was established," Etixx–Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere told the team's official website upon the new agreement's announcement. "By staying with us, Tom can count on a strong team which will support him in next season's Northern Classics campaign and in his assault for a fifth Paris-Roubaix."
Boonen naturally hopes he can deliver on this planned swansong, but it is also clear he is just as eager to savour the experiences of one last spring campaign, "to get that good feeling again on the cobblestones."
"Even just being there like this year would be already be very nice," he added.
Also doing media duties in the same riverside hotel was the man who denied Boonen a fifth "Hell of the North" title, Orica BikeExchange’s Mathew Hayman. "Paris-Roubaix, doing the Tour de France, it's been a good year for me," the 38-year-old reflected.
There is far from any ill will between the veterans who, interviews completed, chat while enjoying the establishment's electronic foot massages.
Days after winning a stage at, and briefly leading—the Tour de Wallonie—Boonen appeared motivated to ensure the remainder of 2016 is not just about setting himself up for next year's career denouement.
"This is the last moment I'm really preparing for the last part of the season and trying to improve," he said of his gradual summer preparations, including and via the RideLondon-Surrey Classic. "But I'm already, I think, on a decent level enough to win the races like this, so let’s go for it tomorrow and try to win."
Boonen's optimism proved well-founded.
After Team Sky rider Geraint Thomas' solo attack was caught upon the race's return to central London (the rest of the earlier breakaway also having been swept up), the peloton massed on The Mall for the event's first bunch sprint proper since its inaugural edition in 2013.
A day earlier, Boonen reminisced about winning on the same stretch of road on the concluding stage of the 2006 Tour of Britain. He beat Brits Roger Hammond and future team-mate Mark Cavendish racing away from Buckingham Palace rather than facing it like the Classic does.
This time, he pipped another old colleague in Mark Renshaw (now with Cavendish at Dimension Data) and recent Tour de France stage-winner Michael Matthews (Orica-BikeExchange). Finding a clear route down the right, his acceleration proved sufficient to hold off the Australians' spirited charges.
Boonen described himself as "very happy" after the gruelling afternoon's riding.
"I was suffering all day long and people were going bananas all day, everybody was fighting for every metre, and at a certain point when we caught the first climb, I had a puncture, and I got behind a group that was dropped, so I was chasing for 20K," he explained.
"Caught back on, race exploded, got back in the back, so I was just chasing all day long, and then it was only in the final we had control of the race again. At 50K to go, we started chasing the first guys, and then, yeah, we got them in the last five kilometres."
Up next for Boonen is Dwars door het Hageland back home in Belgium on Friday. This along with RideLondon-Surrey and his next assignments will support the major target for the remainder of 2016: a hoped-for tilt at the World Championships in Qatar. His plans were confirmed in the wake of the aforementioned Wallonie win—per CyclingNews.
A competitor more commonly associated with springtime one-day successes in recent years is reiterating his enduring quality in the short layover between two of sport's greatest extravaganzas.
Whatever comes next, enjoy watching Boonen while you still can.
Quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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