Physically and in terms of age they have much in common. It’s not unreasonable for Boonen to reprioritise in the face of the new young guns. I’d rather he didn’t beat Tony, but I think it’s a good move.

Boonen never won Gent-Wevelgem.. He even never ended on the podium.. Ok that was a lie.. In 2003 third.

that Boonen’s power profile is similar to Cancellara’s.

And what this post overlooks is the specific nature of many of Boonen’s performances: the short version is that Boonen has NEVER JUST been a sprinter.

Consider his break-through ride in the 2002 Paris-Roubaix: finished 3rd after surviving from the early break (I’ll leave what happened to Hincapie out of that one . . .).

In at least two E3s he basically towed the break for more than 30k. (Most notably the year that Ballan hung on for dear life with a broken seat-post).

My point is that Boonen doesn’t win classics by sitting in and waiting for the last couple of ks for his train: he attacks from anywhere from 40 to 30kl out to either go solo or whittle the bunch down to a 4 or 5 rider break.

And, since, those 4 or 5 riders KNOW that he can also sprint, the burden of making the pace very often falls to Boonen.

In short, don’t be surprised. The limiting factor is not his power, but the increasingly fragile condition of his back and whether he can hold the position.

but in the last 2 km he crashed, which lost him about 30-40 seconds…If he had not crashed he would have ended up second to Cancellara, which still would have been a good 30 seconds back but that is a marked improvement from where he was at.

Also, he has probably never put himself out on the line on a TT because since he was focused on stage wins mostly, he would use a TT for recovery. When you look at his performance this year’s Roubaix and the 2005 Ronde, he used his TTing skills to propel himself to victory. Don’t doubt him in his TTing because he has shown his skills before.

but I specifically remember Cance saying that each one could easily be in the others position, that they had just chosen different paths earlier in their careers.

starting “Perhaps” sums it up. He’s won plenty of sprints, so he may not have the hunger, and anyway his chances in a WC against the kids, Freire, etc aren’t great.

Also, there are three medals in the WC ITT. Just because Cancellara owns the event doesn’t mean Boonen can’t shoot for the podium. A guy who has won so much, and who has a somewhat limited set of opportunities going forward… I can see him looking for new, attainable challenges.

I can’t prove anything in this post but my feeling all along was that Boonen’s success in sprinting had as much to do with the relatively poor competition he faced as much as anything else. What I mean here is that during the time that he’s been one of the fastest bike riders in the world, his sprinting competition was at a relatively weak point and so his success has been greater in the sprints than it would have been if he had raced at another time.

Competition in any discipline in cycling fluctuates a bit over any given time period and I contend that until Farrar and Cavendish came along, Boonen’s sprinting competition just wasn’t all that great. It just seemed to me that there have been very few pure sprinters the last several years. There was an aging McEwen of course, but the fact that Robbie’s hung on so long says a lot about the competition. Zabel also hung around a long time past his prime, and still had success. Then you have guys like Hushovd and Freire, neither of whom I regard as pure speed merchants as their skill sets encompassed other things than sprinting. Like Boonen they were good at other things plus they had a faster kick at the end than most riders. None of these guys are like Cavendish or Farrar.

I remember an article on Cancellara last spring where he compared himself to Boonen, noting that when they were Juniors they were very similar in what they could do: they were even as sprinters, chronomen, Classics-you name it. But since then Cancellara put more energy into time trialing while Boonen sharpened his sprinting skills. The interesting thing here is that this article was talking about Cancellara’s interest in doing hillier races, which Riis was encouraging. We saw early results of this at the Suisse Tour this year and I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see if he puts more attention towards hillier races this year.

But back to Boonen: I remember thinking at the end of that cancellara article that what is Boonen doing? Is he just content to race the same races year after year or does he have, like Cancellara, other aspirations? Well it’s pretty clear now that like Cancellara, yes Boonen does want to try different things. Plus it makes sense that the first thing he’d try is time trialing. Again, he has Cancellara’s body. Why shouldn’t he be good at time trialing if he put his mind to it? Guessing if he can beat cancellara is just speculation right now but I’d say that if cancellara continues to look at hillier races than, yes, Boonen has the body to put up a good challenge. He just needs to get him mind around it.

How can he think he’ll be capable of beating Cancellara

You could ask the same question about Cav, Greipel, and Farrar. I doubt many people would argue Tom is purely faster than any of these guys, and we have seen that at least Cav’s and Farrar’s speed isn’t diminished too much by long distances (MSR this year and Paris-Tours last year, where Farrar won the bunch sprint).

One of the reasons Boonen does well in the cobbled classics is because he has a motor and a half. You can’t factor in races like that, especially where cobbles make drafting a lot more difficult in sections, without a big motor. And let us not forget Flanders in 2005, where Boonen won by riding in alone with not one but TWO T-mobile riders working together to try and bring him back. Added to the impressive nature of that is that Boonen attacked after the Bosberg, the last climb.

If Boonen really puts his weight into this, I think he can be a very good TT man. It may take more than one season to bring him up to the level of Cancellara and other top riders, but in 2 years I see it as a definite possibility.

Especially since Tommeke doesn’t really like to sprint that much anymore.

I welcome anything to bolster his discipline (on and off the bike) and competitiveness.

In my opinion he’ll need all the discipline he can musterbefore he attempts to become a world beating time trial rider. I don’t think the process itself will bolster his discipline.

It seems to be a very divisive topic. Oh and thanks for the bump to the front page Chris!

The wearing of the green is not so sprinter-exclusive, eh?

but I’m really looking forward to watching it. I always enjoy it when a rider who is really good at a certain set of races decides to broaden his abilities. It’s a bit like watching Gilbert take on the Ardennes this year, though it’s been fairly clear he had that in him.