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"
Cycling
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.
Read also
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Popular news
Latest comments
- The finale of this race was an absolute mess, and the last crash that took out 1/2 of the field was caused when a double width road very suddenly funneled into a single lane, and riders had nowhere to go. I find it amazing how some of these courses get approved in the first place. So much for the UCI's campaign for improved rider safety, because if they actually cared, the organizers wouldn't have been allowed to run the finale on this parcours.
santiagobenites26-03-2025 - I hope Wout can come back. He has had 3 terrible crashes--not on par with Froome or Bernal, but at his level just a fraction of a percent is all that separates the grand champions of this new generation. Even if he is back all the way physically, those abrupt confrontations with pavement and mortality take a psychic toll, especially for a father of young kids.
Barney26-03-2025 - Everyone was so keen on free speech for a while, what happened ;-) But seriously, the problem is not so much that he gave his view as that someone follows it and spreads it, not totally unlike the schoolkids running US war games at present ;-)Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- We'll see what happens this year, hopefully he finds himself a little stronger.awp26-03-2025
- awp, the way and races he races, he probably doesn’t feel like he needs that many or specific race days before the Tour. His program isn’t very different from other years.Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- No, he just realises he’s not a one-day racer so why should he force himself?Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- Sacrificing E3 and G-W that were planned seems like he was hedging his options and only decided to do it after not winning MSR. Would he have planned to do all 5 and if so why hold back on announcing P-R if it wasn’t conditional? Guess people will get active with predictions now :-).Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- The MTB World title - there is no such thing. However, there are World titles in XCC, XCO, XCM, XCE, Enduro, Downhill......... He's after the World title in XCO, but could probably win the XCC title too, as his record is still better than anybody else, and he hasn't ridden an XCC World Cup since May 2021. Ten wins from twelve races says it all..... However, the XCO course is Crans-Montana is technical - he will surely need plenty of time back on the MTB, both training, and racing, otherwise it's going to be another doomed ambition.wipperman9526-03-2025
- Sweet. I wonder who's up on the next episode of Disgraced Ex-Doper Offers an Unsolicited Opinion?critguy26-03-2025
- well, paris-roubaix isn’t hilly AT ALL. it’s flat. the obstacle isn’t the hills it’s the cobbles, and what i’ve gathered over the years is that it’s almost impossible to imagine the beating that the body takes riding that course at race pace.OCexile26-03-2025