Belgian legend Freddy Maertens predicted that a rider like Nick Nuyens would win Sunday’s Ronde van Vlaanderen. The double World champion who, despite going close on several occasions, was never quite able to win Vlaanderens Mooiste himself, thinks the big favourites were too concerned with one another, as he told VeloNation the day after the race.
“The Sunday before I said, when they asked me who is going to win, I said ‘an outsider’, like Chavanel,” he said. “To someone else I said Nick Nuyens, because there was too much rivalry between [Fabian] Cancellara, [Tom] Boonen, Philippe Gilbert…
“And so, what we saw was a very nice Tour of Flanders,” he added, “like we had a very good Milan-Sanremo. So, we look forward to a good Paris-Roubaix.”
Nick Nuyens endured two miserable years at Rabobank, which had followed two average ones at Cofidis; all this was a far cry from his early promise at Quick Step. Since moving to Saxo Bank-SunGard over the winter though, things have changed for the better.
The reason for this is simple to Maertens.
“When you are with Bjarne Riis, maybe when he used to race himself he couldn’t motivate himself so much, but for a team he is special,” said the three-time green jersey winner. “Most of all in the winter he does team building so the guys know each other, of the whole team, and he tries to [get rid of] the laptops, the Nintendos; they must play cards, they must play other things, but they must be social.
“With his three team-building camps, I think he is on the right [track].”
After years of failing to live up to his early promise Nuyens has been under a great deal of fire from the Belgian media; much of this Maertens feels is not undeserved, but he still sees the 30-year-old as a worthy winner.
“Worthy? Sure,” he said. “But I think with other years he didn’t live the life as he had to do: like a professional rider. But now, as I say, he was motivated by Riis, as Riis motivated the whole team – because you can only win a big race when you have a whole team – and then you see the result: he wins Waregem [Dwars door Vlaanderen – Ed], he wins now the Tour of Flanders…”
While Maertens’ two picks for the race finished in first and second place, the big favourites for the race Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen were in third and fourth respectively. Much of the reason for this, he thinks, is that those riders have been tapering their preparation for next week’s big race.
“I think personally if they let Chavanel do his own race then he would win the race. Boonen, like he said yesterday himself, he will be good for [next] Sunday; yesterday [Sunday] he was not 100%, but for riding Paris-Roubaix you must be 100% too! I think Thor Hushovd will also be in good form for Roubaix."
With Meerbeke’s contract to host the race finish having now effectively expired, after 39 years the end of the race could be set to finish in either Oudenaarde or Ronse since both towns have already put in an applicaiton to host. As Maertens currently works at the Centrum Ronde van Vlaanderen in the centre of Oudenaarde, he is unsurprisingly firmly in that camp.
“I think Oudenaarde is good,” he said, “we have a very nice end to the race; we have the Paterberg, we have the Oude Kwaremont, and then 12km until the finish. The Muur and the Bosberg will be earlier, but as Wouter Vandenhaute [the Ronde van Vlaanderen organiser – Ed] says, it is some changing but why not?
“It’s not like they said on the first day ‘you may not change the parcours’ because the riders will not know the way to ride,” he laughed. “And the Tour de France and the Tour of Italy, the Giro, and the Vuelta: every year, other etapes too.
“Sometimes you have to change,” he concluded, “because when Meerbeke had it years ago, it was decided in a pub!”