Tom Boonen blames route design for Jasper Philipsen's Nokere crash: "A long straight finish with a descent is the most dangerous thing there is"

The new finish of Nokere Koerse was supposed to improve safety. But a fall with Jasper Philipsen had the opposite effect. Tom Boonen explains knows why this outcome was almost inevitable.

"Every finish has its pros and cons. But the new finish of Nokere Koerse is certainly not safer than the previous finish. A long straight finish with a descent is the most dangerous thing there is," Boonen opens his argument at Wielerclub Wattage podcast.

While he doesn't want to entice organisers to put dangerous turns in final phases of the race, however a downhill run-in doesn't seem to cut it for him either: "On a road with 3 or 4 bends, the peloton is pulled into a ribbon and the sprinters are at the front. But now you get a wave effect."

Boonen explains the situation with a physics lesson: "The riders now came from a descent before they had to go uphill. So the riders at the back had already been freewheeling for 300 or 400 meters and wanted to get to the front, while the riders at the front were destroying themselves uphill. The result was that the riders at the front fell through and the riders at the back came to the front. And there wasn't much room for that." A heavy crash was the result.