Tom Boonen (Dutch pronunciation:[ˈtɔm ˈboːnə(n)]; born 15 October 1980) is a Belgian professional road bicycle racer who won the 2005 world road race championship. He is a member of the Etixx–Quick-Step team, and is a single-day road specialist with a strong finishing sprint. He won the cycling monuments Paris–Roubaix 4 times and the Tour of Flanders 3 times, among many other prestigious victories, such as prevailing 5 times in the E3 Harelbeke, winning 6 stages of the Tour de France and winning the Overall title of the Tour of Qatar 4 times. His personality and looks, with his successes, turned him into Belgium's male sports idol of the mid-2000s, but he incurred controversy after testing positive twice for cocaine.
Career
Early years
At the start of 2002 Boonen rode for U.S. Postal Service, finishing third in Paris–Roubaix after an early breakaway. Fellow BelgianJohan Museeuw had escaped to a solo victory. Team captain George Hincapie crashed in a slippery section of the course leaving Boonen to ride for himself. Boonen's performance led Museeuw– his childhood hero– to declare Boonen his successor.
"[After yesterday's crash in the Tour de Rijke, Quick.Step's Tom Boonen managed to train for around 100 kilometres on Sunday morning.] This morning I woke up a little bit worried about the potential consequences of yesterday's fall during the G.P. De Rijke, where I hurt my knee, ... Fortunately the knee was not swollen. When I started to ride my bike, I understood that the problem was not serious as I feared. I trained for around 100 kilometres without problems, forcing and doing some tests on the knee. Tomorrow I will do a long training ride and then Wednesday, as scheduled, I will fly to Granada. In the Tour de France I was unlucky, yesterday not."
"The world's is the only race that matter for me. My goal here at the Vuelta is sharpen my fitness. If I win a stage, great, but the most important thing at the Vuelta is to leave stronger than I came."
"I'm lacking a little competition, but the knee is fine. It doesn't hurt and it's good enough to start the Vuelta and begin my preparations for the world's."
"The financial side of it is pleasant of course, but that is not the main reason for me leaving my parental home in Balen. I would like to lead a bit of a normal life again. It will be nice to walk down the street without people staring at me. Every day there's a dozen of interested fans at my front door; it's getting too much. I'm getting a bit fed up with having to tell the same story twenty times a day to people I don't know at all, or having to listen to their stories. Monaco will be a better place for me to train also, in winter I often don't have the courage to go out in the bad weather, in the South training will be easier."
"I'm not a 100 percent satisfied, but let's say 98 percent,"
"It's OK that the others are ahead of me here. It doesn't worry me. I really didn't try in this Vuelta, ... I'm only here to prepare for the world championships. That's the only thing that matters to me right now."
"It's okay that the others are ahead of me here. It doesn't worry me. I really didn't try in this Vuelta. I only came to the Vuelta to recuperate my fitness and I leave here at about 80 percent fitness. If I was here at top fitness I might not have reached the peak at the world's. At Madrid, I want to be 110 percent fitness and I didn't want to peak too early."
"(Alejandro) Valverde is going to drop some bombs. And if it ends up finishing in a bunch sprint I'm not sure Petacchi will get his Italian train going."
"(Alejandro) Valverde is going to drop some bombs. And if it ends up finishing in a bunch sprint I'm not sure Petacchi will get his Italian train going,"
"The Belgian riders did everything for me, ... I didn't have to work hard until the end. At the finish, Mario Aerts gave me perfect position."
The Dutchman rode to victory in the rain at the Tour of Flanders and now has three victories on the cobbles to add to his tally of six ... As Mathieu van der Poel crossed the line at the Tour of Flanders, he said ... All his rivals did ... -Tom Boonen (Belgium).
Sie w�rde wohl auch dem deutschen Rennstall Bora-hansgrohe neue Perspektiven er�ffnen ...Allein in diesem Jahr stehen schon wieder 54 Siege zu Buche f�r den Rennstall, in dem einst auch Marcel Kittel, Mark Cavendish oder Tom Boonen gro� auftrumpften.
Belgian cycling being the small world it is, he shares a home town, Mol, with a superstar of the past, Tom Boonen, with whom he would go for coffee rides early in his career.
Remco Evenepoel is cycling’s hottest prospect, but at one thing he is terrible. keeping it secret ... Tom Boonen, the men’s road race champion of 2005,. .
AFP, MADRID ... “He took his time in the end,” his Quick-Step AlphaVinyl Team boss Patrick Lefevere said ... However, a landmark triumph at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, where Tom Boonen said Evenepoel had ridden everyone into the ground, gave hope ... .
Tom Devriendt, meanwhile, who has just two wins on his palmarès – a stage at Int ... The three-star section is where Tom Boonen attacked a decade ago, but I';m not sure we will be seeing a repeat of that spectacular feat here today.01.29 PM.
Even for the pre-race favourite, it seemed like pure madness ... ... The time he infiltrated an Italian amateur race, using the fake name Francesco del Ponte with a photo of one of the sport’s incumbent stars, Tom Boonen, attached to his racing licence ... 1 ... .
