A perineum cyst has forced Tom Boonen to put an early end to a terrible 2013 season but the Belgian is confident that he will get back to his best. Having almost recovered from his health issues, he will resume his training later this month.

Tom Boonen put the world on fire in 2012 when he won big one-day races E3 Prijs Vlaanderen, Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Bruxelles and the Belgian championships and expectations for the 2013 season were high. However, crashes and health issues have plagued him ever since illness forced him to cancel his participation in the team's team building camp in December and as a fitting end to a nightmare season, a perineum cyst forced him to put an end to his season in August.

Since then, the Belgian press has published several stories concerning his apparent lack of motivation. Acknowledging that it has been a mentally tasking season, Boonen is, however, defiant and expects to be back at his best for next season.

“It’s going in the right direction,” Boonen told Het Nieuwsblad. “The skin around my perineum has grown back but now I have to let it recuperate. I tried a couple of times to ride for an hour but it’s better that I save myself now and the skin grows strong again. I hope to be back training on the bike at the end of September.”

A crash in the Tour of Flanders brought his spring campaign to an end but things were looking to turn around when he won a stage of the Tour de Wallonie. Unfortunately, he never got to race anymore in the 2013 season.

“Sure, I’ve had a lot of bad luck this year and that knocks you mentally, but the condition was there,” he said. “Leading up to the Tour de Wallonie, I went altitude training with Zdenek Stybar and when I see how well Styby is performing now, I know that I could have shown some good things myself this autumn."

“[Next year] my goals are again in the spring classics, but to achieve them, it’s important that my wound heals as quickly as possible. Then I will have to start working on my condition.”

Boonen will miss this year's world championships but the former world champion is not too concerned.

“It’s always a pity to miss the Worlds but it’s a bit less painful to miss out this year,” he said. “The course in Florence isn’t really for me. The disappointment was much larger when I missed out on the Worlds in 2010 and 2011 [Geelong and Copenhagen]. Injury denied me two chances of being world champion again. As for Florence, I see that Philippe Gilbert is coming very good again and it would be great if he could be world champion again.”