Since Tom Boonen won the World Championships Road Race back in Madrid 2005, he has gone on to become one of the Worlds’s greatest ever Classic riders. Despite this success however, Boonen is still hungry to win another Rainbow Jersey.

“In recent years I missed Copenhagen because of my knee, and I didn’t go to the Australia because of my knee either,” Boonen said. “So I missed out on two chances to be world champion on two courses that were really good for me. Right now in my head, I feel like I’ve got three chances left – this year, next year and Qatar. We’ll see after that, but there certainly won’t be many more.”

Boonen has dominated the Tour of Qatar, taking 4 GC wins and 22 stages, and naturally he wants to be the first an to win a World title there.

“Qatar is in my head. When it was announced two years ago, I started thinking ‘if it’s possible to be there, that could be the most beautiful Worlds of all time.” 

Boonen is in the position of not actually being the designated leader of the Belgium team in Ponferrada. That is shared between himself, Philippe Gilbert, Sep Vanmarcke and Gre3g van Avermaet. However, he sees Belgium’s strength as an advantage.

“I think that it’s a strength for us to have four riders capable of winning, four riders who used to being there in the finale of big races,” Boonen said. “It’s not just about having men in front, you can also put pressure on the others with the riders you have behind. If Sep and Greg are in front, and I’m behind, that puts a lot of pressure on the other teams.”

Boonen himself rates Simon Gerrans of Australia as the favourite to take the jersey on the back of his historic double in Canada.

“I think Gerrans is the fastest of the riders who do Liège and races like that, as we saw in Canada where he did an extraordinary sprint,” Boonen said. “But it’s not the same thing to do a sprint against the riders from the Walloon classics because they’re not the quickest riders in the world.”

“Gerrans is a rider capable of winning those races, but against the likes of [John] Degenkolb and me, normally he wouldn’t have a big chance. But it’s not just him; there are a lot other riders capable of winning on Sunday.”

Boonen is confident of his own chances and says he has the form to win the race once again in Spain on Sunday.

“I’ve done everything in the last two months to get here in top form,” Boonen said. “I came through the Vuelta well, and I was very tranquil. I did a few sprints, I got into a couple of breaks, but it was always tranquil.”