Professional cycling has rarely been compared to a see-saw, perhaps never.
Let’s strike out then with a bold image of the ever-popular playground fulcrum bearing a Belgian cyclist at either end.
One, wearing black and red, the phonetics Bravo, Mike, Charlie stenciled across his chest, remains stubbornly grounded. The other, clad in a delicate shade of turqouise, dangles weightless in the air, a smile plastered across his beaming face.
While followers of professional cycling are being treated to the Tom Boonen of old, 29-year-old Philippe Gilbert, last year’s world number one and unofficial ‘King of the Classics’, is increasingly being made to look like yesterday’s man.
Boonen’s victory in yesterday’s Gent-Wevelgem, his second in as many years, and the third of his career, brought him into the company of just four others to have won the race three times: Mercx, Cipollini, Van Eenaeme, Van Looy.
While no one, not even Cavendish, just rolls up and wins a ‘monument’, few can claim to have been surprised by Boonen’s victory. A record breaking fourth win at E3 Prijs Vlaanderen-Harelbeke two days earlier would perhaps have given a clue to the Belgian’s form.
Until E3-Harelbeke, Boonen’s victories this year had all come in stage races. February saw him claim an almost customary overall victory in the Tour of Qatar. A winning streak interrupted by a second place finish (admittedly by the narrowest of margins) at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was resumed on stage two of Paris-Nice. Another attempt at a first victory in Milan-San Remo brought only 22nd place.
But Boonen proved that his one day form is equal to the prowess he has shown in stage races with back-to-back victories at E3 Harelbeke and Gent-Wevelgem. The Ronde van Vlaanderen is another race of a magnitude that forbids certainty but Boonen, a two-time winner of his home nation’s biggest race, will certainly start among the favourites.
Gilbert, however, a favourite this time last year for almost any one day race he cared to enter, has struggled to produce a performance in almost any competitive outing in 2012.
A low key start to the season at the Tour of Qatar saw Gilbert finish 22nd but in conditions hardly suited to a Belgian (excepting those called Boonen) this was hardly cause for alarm. Fifteenth at the Tour du Haut Var, a race won with some Gilbert-esque performances by Endura Racing’s Jon Tiernan-Locke, could again be chalked up to early-season form building.
Merely scraping inside the top 50 at Strade-Bianche, however, was more troubling, particularly in the first outing for the superstar pairing of Evans and Gilbert. The standard for the BMC ‘superteam’ was instead carried by Alessandro Ballan and Greg Van Avermaet, a duty repeated at Gent-Wevelgem by the team’s lesser pairing (and only at BMC could they be described as such).
Abandoning Tirenno-Adriatico after six anonymous stages could be excused in the name of recuperation for Milan-San Remo. But 87th in La Primavera, a race in which he had graced the podium the previous year, was harder to overlook. And yesterday, when Gilbert crossed the line 38 places and over two-and-a-half minutes behind Boonen (teammate Thor Hushovd arrived with the same time, nine places behind Gilbert), it was clear that the crown of the King of the Classics, snatched by Gilbert from the head of Cancellara last year, had slipped.
Both Boonen and Gilbert have conducted themselves with dignity throughout their fluctuating fortunes: Boonen paying genuine tribute to the efforts of his teammates; Gilbert frankly admitting his best form is a long way off. For fans of cycling, Boonen’s return to form has been a delight; we can only wish the same for Gilbert.
