"It lasted six years" - Tom Boonen reveals former teammate Lance Armstrong refused to talk to him; Johan Bruyneel hits back at Belgian legend

Cycling is in it's off-season period but you would be wrong to think that most are quietly preparing the 2025 season and just waiting for racing to start in 2025. In a recent interview, Belgian classics legend Tom Boonen revealed that despite being teammates for several seasons, Lance Armstrong spent 6 years without talking to him - which also led Johan Bruyneel to hit back at Boonen.

At Het Nieuwsblad's Stamcafé Koers, Boonen was a premium guest this week and came out with explosive revelations. In 2001 he was a trainee, and 2002 a full-time rider for the US Postal team, at the time led by Lance Armstrong who was in the middle of his Tour de France streak - that would be later stripped of him due to the use of EPO, Human Growth Hormone and diuretics.

Boonen was not yet the rider he later became or a big figure in the American team, but from the one full season he had there he had a particularly bad memory of something the American said of several riders: "I remember Armstrong saying, ‘It’s better without guys like that, they should send them all home.’ A few years later, you look back and think, seriously?"

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Boonen at the time broke his contract with US Postal and joined the Quick-Step team where he spent the rest of his career all the way into 2017. He tells that even in his goodbye from the team, Armstrong had a particularly bad response and even seemed to hold a grudge against the Belgian who was only at the very start of his career. "Lance replied: ‘Good luck, you’ll need it.’ That hit me hard. And I was only 20 years old, you know. For a couple of years, he wouldn’t speak to me whenever we crossed paths in races".

It sounds like an absurd situation, but the Belgian swears by it: "It lasted six years. By then, I thought, ‘F*ck you, man.’ Every race we were both in, I’d pass him and say, ‘Hey Lance,’ and he’d just stare straight ahead, angry and grim. I just laughed at him, and honestly, that’s the best way to make a statement". 

Boonen would go on to make a career out of his sprinting and cobbled classics abilities, winning the World Championships in 2005; Paris-Roubaix four times; Tour of Flanders three times and a whole array of top races spanning throughout his long career which had over 120 wins to his name by the end.

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But these comments didn't go by unnoticed, and US Postal's former DS Johan Bruyneel (who was a key part of Armstrong's block). The now Belgian pundit received a lifetime suspension from the sport after his involvment in the team's scandal and his role in it, but is currently a very vocal voice in all subjects pro cycling.

He took to social media to comment on Boonen's statements, with another cryptic reply that leaves more space for the story to develop: "Boonen should shut up! I’m going to leave it at that".

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