Tom Boonen wins the Tour of Flanders for the maximum number of third time
Tom Boonen joins the esteemed league of cyclists with most number of wins at the Tour of Flanders.
The cyclist previously won the 2005 and 2006 versions of the race and rode brilliantly to bag his third victory at the event.
He entered the race as a favourite along with Fabian Cancellara and Filippo Pozzato.
Cancellara could not make it through to the end after a devastating crash during the final 67 kilometres of the race.
Boonen finished the race in a fastest time of 6 hours, 4 minutes and 33 seconds and overcame Filippo Pozzato after a photo finish.
Alessandro Ballan of Team BMC finished one second behind at the second position.
Greg Van Avermaet, Peter Sagan and Niki Terpstra occupied the fourth, the fifth and the sixth positions respectively.
Tom now joins the much worthy group of five cyclists with 3 victories at the Belgian race under his belt.
Achiel Buysse, Fiorenzo Magni, Eric Leman, Johan Museeuw and Tom Boonen are the top five players to have received the honours.
Boonen started his 2012 campaign with an overall victory at the Tour of Qatar and also grabbed the point’s classifications at the race.
The 31-year-old also grabbed stages at the Tour of Qatar, Tour de San Luis and Paris-Nice to mark a perfect start to his new year.
He finished first at the E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem before arriving at the Tour of Flanders.
While commenting on his recent victory he noted, "It's amazing. It's only now that it's starting to get into my head that I've won the Tour of Flanders three times”.
"By the start of the season, I had said that if I could have a good winter with no injures, there would be a lot of races where I could get a record”.
I already have two records now, shared with the other guys. It's an important year. Winning this race three times puts the races I won before in the spotlight again. It shows that I've already had a nice career", he concluded.
The Belgian is now leading the UCI World Tour rankings as of April 1st, 2012. He is currently leading the category with a maximum number of 266 points to his credit.
Simon Gerrans of Team GreenEdge is 56 points behind at the second position while Vincenzo Nibali, Peter Sagan and Alejandro Valverde are currently holding the next three spots.
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