After recovering from his crash at the inaugural Abu Dhabi Tour, Tom Boonen says he is exactly where he should be at this point in the year and is ready to finally have some luck at the Classics after three bad years in his beloved races.

“I think I deserve it after the past three seasons, I’ve had my share of bad luck,” Boonen said. “I mean, I wanted to do Abu Dhabi because I wanted to finish the season as late as possible and have a short break, and prepare the spring classics in the best way possible, and then this happens again… But I hope from now on all the bad luck is behind me.”

Boonen says he has to refind the zone of focus his girlfriend calls the “cave”, where he enters just before the Classics.

“In the weeks before the Classics, my girlfriend says that I get in my cave, I don’t come out until the races are over,” he said. “I don’t notice, I think I’m normal but I’m not talking as much. I’m just focused. It’s a state of mind that you get into. I think I need that to get into that special Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix mode.”