Tom Boonen wins the Flandrien 2012 Award
Tom Boonen has managed to overcome his compatriot Philippe Gilbert to claim the most prestigious cycling award in Belgium.
After winning the Tour of Flanders and the Paris-Roubaix Boonen was voted as winner of the ‘Flandrien 2012' and has been declared as the best rider of the Belgium after his tremendous performances throughout the season.
The Belgian last received the award back in 2005 and had to wait a good seven years to get his hands back on the trophy.
Since 2005, Paolo Bettini (2006-07), Greg Van Avermaet (2008) and Philippe Gilbert (2009-11) succeeded in winning the reward.
The newly-crowned World Champion, Philippe Gilbert was also delighted on his compatriot’s achievement.
Gilbert started the 2012 season rather slowly but managed to find the right form during the Vuelta a Espana and bagged two stages at the race but his performances were never good enough to claim the Flandrien 2012 award.
Tom however, has filled his bag with several victories in the current season with overall victories and stage wins at the Tour of Qatar and the World Ports Classics.
He finished first at the Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders, Gent-Wevelgem, E3 Harelbeke, Paris-Brussels, Paris-Nice, and Tour de San Luis, finished second at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and fourth at the Vattenfall Cyclassics.
Boonen’s recent success came during the UCI Road World Championships as he led Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step during the trading team time trial event.
He was part of strong six-man squad including, Sylvain Chavanel, Tony Martin, Niki Terpstra, Kristof Vandewalle and Peter Velits.
The Belgian team crossed the finish-line in a total time of 1:03:17.17 and secured the gold medal with Team BMC at the second and Team Orica-GreenEdge holding the third position.
He rode exceptionally well to find the top podium position at the UCI Road World Championships 2012 and restricted his major opponents.
"It's fun and what makes it even better is the fact that I won ahead of the newly crowned world champion Philippe Gilbert. This gives even more value to this trophy," Boonen briefed according to nieuwsblad.be.
He further added, "It is clear to me that this is the trophy for consistency. I have won more big races than Gilbert, who won the biggest race".
"This trophy is a reward for the hard work that I've done after a few difficult years to get back to the top This return was as beautiful as my best wins," Boonen concluded.
On the other hand, Liesbet De Vocht tops the women category with 49 points in her back pocket with Evelyn Arys, Jessie Daams, Maaike Polspoel and Kelly Druyts holding the next four spots.
Kevin Deltombe wins the juniors category and was supported by Tiesj Benoot, Dries Van Gestel, Maxime Farazijn and Joachim Vanreyten at the second, third, fourth and the fifth positions respectively.
Enzo Wouters, Senne Leysen, Charlie Arimont, Jordi Warlop and Igor Decraene were the top five new comers as announced during the ceremony.
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