Tom Boonen: "There is not much in the list of achievements of today. Not even with a champion like Mathieu van der Poel"

Tom Boonen counts on 122 victories as a pro cyclist including 7 cobbled monument triumphs, stages at the Tour de France and World Championships. However he believes his depth makes his palmarès superior to even the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, and he owes it to the different type of racing that he had to do.

“I would have liked to race against the men of today. Attacking from afar, doing something 'crazy', that would match well with my way of racing," Boonen said in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. “On January 1, riders from Visma | Lease a Bike will know that they will be at 5% fat on April 1. That gives you peace of mind. For me it was still: planning my own meal, arranging my own physiotherapist... Also because I was too proud to be assisted. Now I think: why was I so stupid not to realize that you can get better by being guided.”

Boonen retired only 7 years ago in 2017 but he recalls his time as a pro - from 2002 to 2017 - as an entirely different universe when it came to training and preparation for the big races. He tells of how he used to take care of much of his preparation and health by himself; and that currently pro riders have vastly better abilities to digest food and keep their weight under control all year long.

"The knowledge was already there, but now they can apply it better. With us it was still really: sixty grams of sugar per hour, the body could not process more. Meanwhile it is almost twice as much. Riders now also maintain their weight throughout the year. With us, the idea was that you had to 'train yourself lean'," the Belgian legend explains. "I was actually hungry for ten years.”

And to get to race weight, Boonen would take on very heavy racing schedules over the opening months of the season. At the time this worked wonders as his palmarès shows, but it brings out the difference to current racing where the likes of Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel have shown very well that they can enter the season late and already in peak form. Van der Poel for example will only race a handful of days throughout the entire spring.

The number of races that riders ride has also changed compared to the past. Today's riders race very little. While I had a year in which I already had 40 competition days for Roubaix," Boonen says, being a big reason for the amount of victories he has. "Now that's a season. To put it bluntly: there is not much in the list of achievements of today. Not even with a champion like Mathieu van der Poel. I rode that in one season,” he jokes.

He also comments on the recent debate on the friendliness amongst some of the biggest figures in the sport - with Milano-Sanremo being a prime example, as second and third placed riders Tadej Pogacar and Michael Matthews drove to Milano together; whilst race winner Jasper Philipsen is also their close friend and resident in the Monaco area.

“What is also different now: the atmosphere between riders and between riders and the press has become so much more friendly. That's a kind of camaraderie that didn't exist before," Boonen admits. "If I didn't win two classics one spring, like in 2010 against Cancellara, I was completely destroyed... Every generation has its own champions."