Belgian star aims to take back the driekleur, says contract renewal talks are going well
After a mixed spring campaign, Tom Boonen (Quick Step) is building his form for the next phase of the season, according to Sporza. The 2005 World champion is currently riding the Tour de Suisse, but hopes to reach top form in time for the Belgian Championships in Hooglede-Gits at the end of the month, in order to be at his best for the Tour de France in July.
The Belgian was in the early breakaway at the beginning of the brutal, mountainous third stage, “but I soon saw that it was a crazy plan,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws and the Gazet van Antwerpen.
“In the next few days I’ll probably mix it in the sprint a few times,” he said, “but the priority is the Tour and the Belgian Championships.”
Unsurprisingly, Boonen has not featured in the opening stages of the Tour de Suisse, since they have featured some tough mountains. His condition is improving day by day though, he says.
“Slowly but surely I’m approaching the top,” he explained. “My peak form should start bearing fruit. I’m now where I need to be to start my tour preparation.
“I will be on top form in Hooglede-Gits,” he added.
Boonen won the Belgian Championships in 2009, taking the iconic black yellow and red driekleur jersey. During the Tour de Suisse last year though, he suffered a knee injury in a crash at the Tour of California, which was exacerbated in another in the Tour de Suisse; he was forced to sit out the entire summer and was unable to defend his national title, which was taken by his then teammate Stijn Devolder (now at Vacansoleil-DCM).
Contract renewal talks going well but he admits he’s looking around
Like his friend and fellow Belgian star Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Boonen’s contract with his current team expires at the end of the year. While he is pleased with the offer to stay where he is from team manager Patrick Lefevere, he cannot deny that he has been looking around at other teams.
“We’ll have been together at Quick Step for nine years,” said Boonen to Het Nieuwsblad. “Patrick asked me for my vision on the future of the team, I told him that I’d gladly stay.
“I’m at a very important decision,’ he explained. “Either I sign a contract for another two or three years at Quick Step, or I choose a change of air and sign for another team.
Boonen has been with the Quick Step team since 2003, after leaving his contract with the US Postal Service team a year early. Since then, he has become Belgian cycling’s biggest star, with a multitude of victories in the tough spring Classics of the north.
While Tornado Tom’s results of recent years have not matched those of five years ago, for which Lefevere has been publicly critical, as a three-time Paris-Roubaix, and two-time Ronde van Vlaanderen winner, the 30-year-old is still very much the poster boy of Belgian cycling.
His one victory in this season’s classics came in Gent-Wevelgem, while he finished fourth in the Ronde and crashed out of Roubaix, but he remains extremely marketable.
"Again, I welcome Patrick Lefevere’ proposal,” he said. “I'm not someone who wants to leave. A few years ago I had a very concrete proposal from another team and I was offered quite a lot of money to move; I didn’t do that then.
I won’t change just for change’s sake, but isn’t it logical that my agent Paul Geyter and I also try listening to other views? The Tour de Suisse offers me an excellent opportunity to do so. Then we’ll weigh it all calmly and make my choice. But I have no deadline; I’m in no hurry.”
It’s not clear which team’s Boonen might receive offers from, but Gilbert is reportedly being courted by Quick Step, BMC Racing, Team Sky, his current team Omega Pharma, and the new team to be set up by his current team’s co-sponsor Lotto. Should Omega Pharma lose out in the race for Gilbert, it could make sense for them to try to replace him with Belgium’s other big name; while the new Lotto cycling project would naturally be in the hunt for the country’s biggest names, should its budget allow.