This year two riders had the chance to become the only rider with four wins in the Tour of Flanders. They were Tom Boonen (Etixx-QuickStep) and in-form Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo). Cancellara showed great form and was expected to await the final loop over the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg to unleash his devils. Boonen showed much fewer glimpses of good form and he stated that he might go earlier than expected.
After taking a shower in the Etixx-QuickStep team bus in Oudenaarde, Boonen was able to laugh with his anticipation tactics as top favourite Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) attacked much earlier than expected and went on to win the race solo.
“I think the World champion anticipated perfectly, as so many riders wanted to do,” Boonen said, laughing. “He was really strong today. He was anticipating to win the race. It’s a moment where they often go there. We all expected something to happen there so we were attentive but they just rode away. The best riders were up front.”
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Boonen went on to finish 15th at one minute from Sagan.
Long before the decisive moment where Sagan and Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky) went up the road at 34 kilometres from the finish the Etixx-QuickStep team tried to cause damage in the peloton with Tony Martin. The peloton split up into several groups but everything came back together.
“If you look at the wider picture we can’t complain," Boonen said. "We tried to make the race go our way. We weren’t hiding away. The other option was to keep waiting, trying to reach the finale with eight riders but what does it deliver. Everybody wants to anticipate but you have to make the race hard because you can’t ride away just like that. The peloton was split into six or seven groups. That was the moment to do something but we lacked the numbers to keep doing it.
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