Tom Boonen dominates the UCI World Tour ranking
Tom Boonen of Team Omega Pharma-QuickStep has extended his lead at the 2012 UCI World Tour ranking. Boonen occupied the first spot with a total number of 366 points to his credit.
The cyclist is enjoying the peak of his career with a massive lead of over 150 points on Simon Gerrans of Team GreenEdge.
Simon Gerrans, Samuel Sanchez, Vincenzo Nibali and Peter Sagan achieved the second, third, fourth and fifth positions in the respective order.
The Belgian opened his winning account with a stage 1 victory at the Tour of Qatar and also succeeded during the fourth stage of the event.
Tom secured an overall victory at the Qatar race along with the point’s classifications at the event.
The cyclist finished first at the Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders, Gent-Wevelgem and E3 Harelbeke.
He bagged stages at the Paris-Nice, the Tour de San Luis and finished second at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad to mark a perfect start to his 2012 campaign.
The 31-year-old has now become the first rider ever to win the Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and E3 Harelbeke in a same year.
He also holds the honour of winning the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in a same year for the second time and became the second rider in history to win the Paris-Roubaix for the maximum number of four times.
While commenting on his current form, Boonen noted, "My legs were good and after the great things I've done in the last two weeks, I was confident of pulling it off. I wanted to do something extraordinary to mark my fourth Paris-Roubaix victory. I think I did it".
Boonen’s victory at the Paris-Roubaix is undoubtedly his best in the season yet, as it helped him in becoming part of history.
“I was not really thinking about the winning race or doing a record, I was just fighting myself. I was taking it step by step, cobblestone by cobblestone, kilometre by kilometre”.
“It is all in your mind. I was really thinking about my lead. I was trying not to push it right away to one minute, tried not to force myself,” he cited.
The next UCI World Tour race is the Amstel Gold Race and Tom will miss the opportunity to extend his lead as the cyclist is not participating in the contest.
Amstel Gold Race is scheduled on Sunday, April 15, in Netherlands and winner of the race will be awarded with 80 UCI points.
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