This feature first appeared in the April issue of ProCycling.
The last decade has indisputably been the era of Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen in the cobbled Classics. In this feature from the April issue of Procycling magazine, which is on sale now, Edward Pickering dissects their parallel careers and asks; what does their rivalry mean?
One image sums up an entire era: Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, the champions of Belgium and Switzerland, pummelling their way across the Flemish Ardennes while the rest of the 2010 Tour of Flanders field is out of the race, trapped like flotsam in the backwash of their attack.
ADVERTISEMENT
There was something resonant about the fact that Boonen and Cancellara were wearing bright national champions’ jerseys in their iconic, two-up, long-range escape in the 2010 Ronde, giving the moment a memorable visual impact, a gaudy palette to illustrate the scene. It was a Flemish landscape painted in Fauvist colours. But even more than this, the escape summed up an era, a convenient metaphor for more than a decade of cobbled Classics: Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, way ahead of the rest.
Boonen and Cancellara are once-in-a-generation talents, who happen to have come along at the same time. While both were energetic multi-taskers early in their careers – Boonen was also a sprinter, Cancellara also a time triallist – the truest expression of their talents has always come in the Classics. Boonen will hit out occasionally in a bunch finish these days, and Cancellara still wins time trials, but neither are the best in the world at these disciplines any more. However, even at the age of 35, they’ll still be among the top three or four favourites for the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix this year.
The greatest rivalry ever?
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://ift.tt/21TRhMS
No comments:
Post a Comment