THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Overall: Boonen proves teamwork counts at Ghent-Wevelgem
It would have been a shame, really, if it had ended any other way.
After treating the local fans to a display of power in the 66th running of Ghent-Wevelgem in Belgium on Wednesday, the Quick Step-Davitamon team turned to its young gun Tom Boonen to close the deal. The 23-year-old did so magnificently, continuing his rise to stardom by outfoxing a group of seasoned sprinters including Magnus Backstedt (Alessio-Bianchi) and Jaan Kirsipuu (AG2R), who finished second and third respectively.
“This is my biggest victory yet,” said Boonen after he won the 208km race on a cold, wet and miserable day in which only 56 of the 186 starters managed to finish. “
American George Hincapie of the U.S. Postal Service finished fourth, continuing to show impressive form heading into his main target for the spring, Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix.
Known as a race in which the elements often affect the outcome, Wednesday’s slog through rain, hail, wind and frigid temperatures was no exception. Just as the field rolled out from the town of Deinze, just outside of Ghent, at 11:30 a.m., a cold rain began to batter the peloton.
“Our guys were having a rough time, having to come back and get jackets and then chase back,” said Navigators Insurance team director Ed Beamon.
The Navigators team made a big splash here with Henk Vogels’s second-place finish in 2003, but this year the team suffered like so many others in the weather, and had no finishers. Hincapie was the only rider from U.S. Postal to finish.
Almost immediately after the start, as riders headed northwest from Deinze to the coastal town of Oostende, the field split into echelons, with some of those on the rear never regaining contact.
Besides the wind and rain, the main challenge of Ghent-Wevelgem is the Kemmelberg climb, where riders do a circuit and tackle the short, steep cobblestone climb twice. With the rain still falling on the first approach, the climb was difficult and the descent treacherous.
It was here that Quick Step asserted itself. The team’s motivational leader Johan Museeuw, racing Ghent-Wevelgm for the last time in his career, went to the front over the climb, which came with 62km to go.
Hincapie was close to the front as well, and as riders came down the hazardous descent, some clicked a foot out and tenuously made their way down the slick cobblestones. Australian Matt Hayman of Rabobank crashed and was taken away in an ambulance.
After safely coming off the cobblestones the first time, Quick Step turned the screws, causing a split of about 25 riders off the front. That group quickly built a lead of 23 seconds over what was left of the main field. Remarkably, six Quick Step riders were in that front group, including Museeuw, Boonen, Servais Knaven, Nick Nuyens, Wilfried Cretskens and Laszlo Badrogi, who was wearing a mountain-bike style visor to fend off the rain and road spray.
Hincapie also made the break, as did last year’s Ghent winner Andreas Klier (T-Mobile), Backstedt and Kirsipuu among others.
By the final climb of the Kemmelberg, with 40km to go, it was again Quick Step and Hincapie over the top at the front. Hincapie gestured to those around him to take it easy on the descent, and the front group made it down safely.
The final 40km were all Quick Step. The main drama was a puncture for Kirsipuu. Without the Estonian sprint star in that lead group, Quick Step’s job would have been that much easier, but after a hair-raising chase back through the caravan on narrow, one-lane farm roads, AG2R had its hopes intact for the finish.
Heading into the final kilometer, Boonen knew just what to do. Knaven and Museeuw got him to the final 500 meters, and then the speed dropped a bit as the others set up for the sprint. Backstedt came around Boonen on his left, and he jumped on the Swede’s wheel. Hungry to improve on last year’s third-place finish, Boonen passed Backstedt inside of 200 meters to earn the biggest win of his career.
“It’s so hard to win Ghent-Wevelgem,” Boonen said afterward. “They say this is the easiest of the classics, but there’s always a small group at the end, so it’s also hard.”
And with that, the young Belgian turned his attention to this weekend’s Paris-Roubaix, the main objective of the spring. “This team is super strong,” he said. “We showed it today, and I don’t think we have anything to be scared of on Sunday.”
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