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* Third Flanders win for Boonen
By Alasdair Fotheringham
OUDENAARDE, Belgium, April 1 (Reuters) – Belgian Tom Boonen
stormed to a record-equalling third career victory in the Tour
of Flanders on Sunday while 2010 winner Fabian Cancellara fell
and broke his collarbone.
The 31-year-old Omega Pharma-Quick Step rider outsprinted
Italians Filippo Pozzato and Alessandro Ballan to become the
fifth rider to take three wins in the 99 year-old event,
Belgium’s top one-day classic.
The winner of the prestigious Belgian E-3 Harelbeke and
Ghent-Wevelgem classics last weekend and now the new leader of
the UCI WorldTour rankings, Boonen has seemed all but
unstoppable in 2012 after a quiet 2011.
The leading three formed a breakaway 17 kilometres from the
finish on the third ascent of the short but very steep Oude
Kwaremont climb, then Boonen beat the two Italians in a long
final sprint.
“I was surprised as well as pleased to win, because I was
not feeling at all good earlier on,” Boonen, the winner of the
Tour of Flanders in 2005 and 2006, told reporters.
“I was feeling so rough that in fact I knew I couldn’t drop
the other two before the finish and I’d have to gamble on a
sprint.”
“Fortunately if I was tired, so were the rest. It’s been an
amazing race with an amazing result.”
Boonen’s closest pursuer Pozzato said that a crash that saw
leading favourite Cancellara abandon around the 200 km mark was
a key moment.
“It made a big difference,” Pozzato told reporters. “The
other teams really increased the pace and things got a lot
tougher.”
“I thought Tom was not having a good day, he dropped back a
bit on one of the final climbs and I thought that was a good
sign. But he was just as strong as ever in the last sprint.”
Cancellara’s RadioShack team said the 2008 Olympic time
trial champion had suffered a triple fracture of the right
collarbone and would undergo surgery in Basel.
Boonen, a triple Paris-Roubaix winner, was cautious when
asked whether he could equal compatriot Roger De Vlaeminck’s
record four victories in ‘the Hell of the North’ next Sunday.
“I’ve been racing all out for some time now and for now I
just want to enjoy the feeling of taking three Flanders,” Boonen
said. “But I’ll look forward to the challenge.”
“Hopefully he’ll be a bit tired,” added Pozzato, “Otherwise
we won’t have that much of a chance against him.”
(Editing by Alan Baldwin)
