Wednesday, April 12, 2006
(0 + 7) / 2 = 1
Welcome to cycling math. Perhaps in atonement for leaving their captain naked and alone in the wolfpack known as the pro peloton, Quick Step today ensured that Tom Boonen would be ensconced in a phalanx of no less than seven teammates in the close to both the Flemish Classics Season, and Boonen’s own classics campaign. The World champ did not disappoint, out-sprinting his teammate Stephen De Jongh at the end of the Sheldepreis.
Taken over the two days, giving Boonen the support of 3.5 riders doesn’t look half bad. But given that Sheldepreis is not even half the race of Roubaix, it is at best a bittersweet victory. Because in this victory is a remembrance of what might have been just three days prior: Boonen’s wooden legs likely were not from fatigue at his wildly successful early season, but rather at having to do all his own work. Granted, Sheldepreis is 50 kms shorter than Roubaix – and naturally distance isn’t the primary energy-sapping element of the Queen of the Classics – but it does seem fairly clear that Boonen would not have needed a Iron Horse of a train to help move him on to the podium in Roubaix’s velodrome.
The balance for the four days then, is one victory. Not bad perhaps, , and again, in the context of the early season, two other victories in Monuments will provide a salve. But the boys of Quick Step cannot take consolation from the result today.
Taken over the two days, giving Boonen the support of 3.5 riders doesn’t look half bad. But given that Sheldepreis is not even half the race of Roubaix, it is at best a bittersweet victory. Because in this victory is a remembrance of what might have been just three days prior: Boonen’s wooden legs likely were not from fatigue at his wildly successful early season, but rather at having to do all his own work. Granted, Sheldepreis is 50 kms shorter than Roubaix – and naturally distance isn’t the primary energy-sapping element of the Queen of the Classics – but it does seem fairly clear that Boonen would not have needed a Iron Horse of a train to help move him on to the podium in Roubaix’s velodrome.
The balance for the four days then, is one victory. Not bad perhaps, , and again, in the context of the early season, two other victories in Monuments will provide a salve. But the boys of Quick Step cannot take consolation from the result today.
