Tom Boonen unleashed a bold and self-confessed “crazy” move with more than 50km to go to claim a brilliant, record-equaling fourth victory in the Paris-Roubaix classic on Sunday.
Boonen pulled clear 57km from the finish of the Queen of the Classics and never looked back to emulate fellow-Belgian Roger de Vlaeminck, who won four times in the 1970s.
Frenchman Sebastien Turgot, who was on the attack all day, finished second, outsprinting Italian Alessandro Ballan on the Roubaix velodrome.
“It was a little bit crazy. It’s not a move than I often do, but today was the perfect day to take some risk,” said Boonen, who showed four fingers as he crossed the line, his face a mixture of joy and pain.
“It’s my greatest [Paris-Roubaix] win. Claiming the fourth in such manner is just great,” he said.
“[When I pulled away] I was not really thinking about winning the race, I was just fighting, taking it step by step, coblestone by conbblestone, kilometer by kilometer,” said Boonen, now the only man to have achieved a Tour of Flanders/Paris-Roubaix double twice in the same year.
In the absence of Fabian Cancellara, who could not take part in the race after he broke his collarbone in the Tour of Flanders, 2005 world champion Boonen was the hot favorite and he duly delivered in the Hell of the North.
With nobody in the early 12-man breakaway, BMC and Team Sky were forced to do all the work in front of the peloton, while Boonen’s Omega Pharma Quick Step team, who had Guillaume van Keirsbulck among the leaders, sat comfortably in the pack.
Italian Filippo Pozzato, second in Flanders on April 1, was dropped after a massive crash split the main bunch in three with about 115km left. He fought his way back later.
Among those trapped was Frederic Guesdon, the last Frenchman to win Paris-Roubaix in 1997, who is taking part in the race for a record-equaling 17th time despite sustaining a hip fracture earlier this year.
At the beginning of the Trouee d’Arenberg, with hundreds of spectators on the right and mud on the left making it impossible to ride on the side of the road, Boonen and Thor Hushovd were among the first in the peloton to enter the feared cobbled section about two minutes behind the leaders.
Veteran George Hincapie, also in his 17th Paris-Roubaix and a runner-up in 2005, could not follow the pace, but his BMC Racing teammate, Alessandro Ballan, third in 2006 and 2008, was in a six-man counter attacking group that also featured Spain’s Juan Antonio Flecha with less than 80km to go.
The Ballan group opened a 25-second lead, but Boonen’s teammate Geert Steegmans reined them in 68km from the finish.
After joining the breakaway group, Boonen and Pozzato accelerated with 57km left.
However, Pozzato could not sustain the pace and Boonen was eventually accompanied by his Dutch teammate Niki Terpstra, who was dropped in the Auchy-lez-Orchies cobbled section.
Pozzato then crashed and eventually dropped out of contention as Flecha counter attacked 48km from the line.
He quickly built a 30-second gap despite Team Sky’s effort to catch him and the chasers’ chances were effectively over when Boonen’s lead reached a minute with about 20km remaining.
Major League Baseball (MLB) star Shohei Ohtani wants his former interpreter to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of baseball cards he says were fraudulently bought using his money. The Los Angeles Dodgers star is also requesting Ippei Mizuhara, who previously pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud for stealing nearly US$17 million from the unsuspecting athlete, return signed collectible baseball cards depicting Ohtani that were in Mizuhara’s “unauthorized and wrongful possession,” court documents filed on Tuesday said. The legal filing alleges Mizuhara accessed Ohtani’s bank account beginning in about November 2021, changing his security protocols so that he
US skier Mikaela Shiffrin said she sustained an abrasion on her left hip and that something “stabbed” her when she crashed during her second run of an Audi FIS Ski World Cup giant slalom race on Saturday, doing a flip and sliding into the protective fencing. Shiffrin stayed down on the edge of the course for quite some time as the ski patrol attended to her. She was taken off the hill on a sled and waved to the cheering crowd before going to a clinic for evaluation. “Not really too much cause for concern at this point, I just
CLASH OF MANAGERS: Brighton’s Fabian Hurzeler and Russell Martin of Southampton accused each other of disrespect, while both were booked Southampton on Friday were denied a priceless victory by a controversial decision as they drew with hosts Brighton & Hove Albion 1-1 in the Premier League. Kaoru Mitoma spectacularly headed Brighton into a first-half lead and Flynn Downes hammered home an equalizer an hour in. Minutes later teammate Cameron Archer converted a cross from Saints substitute Ryan Fraser. A video assistant referee check of more than four minutes eventually decided that Archer was onside, but then penalized Adam Armstrong, who was offside, but did not touch the ball, for interfering with goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen. “I find it hard to accept,” Southampton manager Russell Martin
Mary McGee, a female racing pioneer and subject profiled in an Oscar-contending documentary, Motorcycle Mary, has died, her family said. She was 87. “McGee’s unparalleled achievements in off-road racing and motorcycle racing have inspired generations of athletes that followed in her footsteps,” her family said in a statement. The family said McGee died of complications from a stroke at her home in Gardnerville, Nevada, on Wednesday, the day before the release of the short documentary Motorcycle Mary, on ESPN’s YouTube channel. Seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton was an executive producer on the film, which became available globally on Thursday. Its premiere
RSS