Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

(Yahoo sports pic)

If only all racing cyclist could be as lucky as Tom Boonen. The guy is going through a mini-crisis as he has not won a sprinters stage so far this year. Instead, he sees Robbie McEwen racking up wins. Today as things looked to come together for a win Oscar Friere rockets out of nowhere to smoke all the sprinters. Any other sprinter would consider this a crisis, but Boonen can go cry about it in his yellow jersey. If the guy cannot get it done one way he finds another way to win or be on top.

Boonen’s early season domination of sprints combined with last year’s dominant performance in the Tour sprints made everyone including Boonen think that he would dominate yet again, but he tells cyclingnews.com that the problem is that he may be a bit nervous in the sprints.

All is going well, as I have the yellow jersey for three days now, so I’m happy for myself and for the team. We’re still not far into this Tour de France so there will be more chances for me to win a stage. Today, I made a mistake at 200 metres of the finish; I think I’m a little bit too nervous.

But these sprints are not anything like the ones at Paris-Nice or the Tour of Qatar:

In the Tour de France, it’s not like that. The riders are the same but they are all very nervous and they do dangerous things in an effort to win the race, also today. But for me that’s the same, as I’m also more stressed and nervous and that doesn’t work. We all know that if you’re relaxed, you can win; on the other hand, if you are nervous you can’t win. But… ça c’est le Tour! (laughs)

True to that point, check the results for stage 5 and you see Inaki Isasi of Euskatel and David Kopp of Gerolsteiner, where were these guys the rest of the season? Who are they? Plus, if you look at places 10 through 30 there are usually loaded with GC contenders trying to not lose time. This makes for a very nervous finish that could shake up a guy like Boonen who is having the best season a man wearing the rainbow stripes has had in a long long time (knock on wood).

One last point, why is Boonen getting so many comparisons to George Hincapie? The cyclingnews.com interviewer asks what Boonen thinks of Hincapie’s switch from sprinter/Classics man to GC contender and if Boonen would consider such a switch in the future.

The comparison between Hincapie and Boonen is a bit of a stretch since Boonen has acheived superstar status winning important Classics races, last year he won Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders, and repeated the Flanders win this year. Meanwhile Hincapie has been an also ran in the Classics. George has always been a contender, but never quite broke through for the truly big win. Perhaps George does make the switch and places well in the GC, but I don’t see why Boonen should be asked these types of questions.