52 Facts About Tom Boonen

1.

Tom Boonen is a Belgian former road bicycle racer, who competed as a professional between 2002 and 2017 for the US Postal Service and Quick-Step Floors teams and a professional racing driver who currently competes in Belcar, having previously competed in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series.

2.

Team captain George Hincapie crashed in a slippery section of the course leaving Tom Boonen to ride for himself.

3.

Tom Boonen said US Postal did not give him enough chances to ride for himself.

4.

Tom Boonen won two stages of the Tour de France including the final stage in Paris, as Museeuw did in 1990.

5.

Tom Boonen retired after stage 11 due to injuries sustained in crashes.

6.

Tom Boonen won the race in Madrid, after the leading six riders were caught.

7.

Tom Boonen outsprinted Alejandro Valverde to become the first Belgian since Museeuw, in 1996, to wear the rainbow jersey.

8.

Tom Boonen came second in the 2005 UCI ProTour rankings.

9.

Tom Boonen won the second and the third stages of the Tour of Belgium.

10.

Tom Boonen won three stages of the Eneco Tour of Benelux but could not keep his title at the world championship, held on a circuit that was hillier than in Madrid 2005.

11.

Tom Boonen won stages 6 and 12 of the Tour de France in the absence of Alessandro Petacchi and Robbie McEwen.

12.

Tom Boonen won the points classification in the Tour de France, the first Belgian since Eddy Planckaert in 1988 to do so.

13.

Tom Boonen began 2008 by winning four stages and the overall and points classifications in the Tour of Qatar.

14.

On 10 June 2008, reports said Tom Boonen was negotiating a team place for him and other riders at Bouygues Telecom, a French team.

15.

Cocaine was not a performance-enhancing drug and Tom Boonen faced no sanctions by the UCI or WADA.

16.

Tom Boonen apologized to his Quick Step manager, Patrick Lefevere at a press conference next day.

17.

Tom Boonen began 2009 by winning a stage and the overall and points classifications in the Tour of Qatar.

18.

Tom Boonen returned to racing in the Eneco Tour where he won the third stage by beating Tyler Farrar in the sprint.

19.

Tom Boonen withdrew during the 13th stage, due to the lasting effects of his crash in the seventh stage.

20.

Tom Boonen became third in the Tour of Qatar, winning two stages, then won stage five of the Tour of Oman.

21.

Tom Boonen began the season by winning the opening stage of the 2011 Tour of Qatar.

22.

Tom Boonen crashed on stage five of the Tour de France.

23.

Tom Boonen's injuries forced him to abandon on stage seven.

24.

Tom Boonen fell again in the Vuelta a Espana, which made him miss the world championship.

25.

Tom Boonen began 2012 season by winning stage seven of his first race, the Tour de San Luis.

26.

Tom Boonen was favourite for the Tour of Flanders, which he won in a sprint against Filippo Pozzato and Alessandro Ballan.

27.

Tom Boonen was first to win the Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix double twice.

28.

Tom Boonen skipped the Tour de France to prepare for the Olympic road race, riding the shorter Tour of Poland instead.

29.

Tom Boonen crashed in the first stage and withdrew on the fifth with a broken rib,.

30.

Tom Boonen recovered in time for the Olympics, and came 28th.

31.

Tom Boonen won the first edition of the two-day stage race World Ports Classic, winning the first stage in a sprint.

32.

Tom Boonen won the points classification and the overall lead after coming third on the second stage.

33.

The breakaway made it home and Tom Boonen had the better of Moreno Hofland in the sprint by a slim margin.

34.

At the 2015 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Tom Boonen made the decisive break with teammates Niki Terpstra and Stijn Vandenbergh, along with Ian Stannard.

35.

Tom Boonen was preparing in Turkey for his first appearance in the Giro d'Italia.

36.

Tom Boonen abandoned the Giro after Stage 13 to participate to the Tour of Belgium, where he won the opening stage by outsprinting Arnaud Demare.

37.

Tom Boonen said that he was "100 per cent certain" that he would compete in motor racing after retiring from competitive cycling, with the aim of competing in the 24 Hours of Zolder.

38.

Tom Boonen ended the season with third place in the World Championship road race in Qatar, where he was beaten by reigning world champion Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish.

39.

At the very beginning of the season, Tom Boonen won stage 2 of the Vuelta a San Juan.

40.

Tom Boonen resumed his cobbled classics campaign at E3 Harelbeke, where he animated the race with an attack on the Taaienberg on his way to an eighth-place finish.

41.

At the Tour of Flanders, Tom Boonen had an eventful race: he led the Quick-Step squad into the foot of the Muur van Geraardsbergen, where he helped to force a breakaway group alongside team leader and eventual race winner Philippe Gilbert, and played a key part in enabling the group to distance the bunch.

42.

Tom Boonen next raced at the Scheldeprijs, his last race in Belgium, which paid tribute to Boonen by starting in his hometown of Mol.

43.

Tom Boonen was part of the lead-out train which helped teammate Marcel Kittel take the win.

44.

In June 2017, Tom Boonen was awarded his motor racing licence after passing the required tests.

45.

Tom Boonen made his full season racing debut in 2018, competing in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series for Braxx Racing in the Elite 2 class.

46.

Tom Boonen scored a Top-10 finish in the second race of the season at Valencia.

47.

Tom Boonen scored another Top-10 finish in the final race of the season at Zolder and finished 13th in the standings with two Top-10 finishes throughout the year.

48.

Tom Boonen escaped major injuries during a crash at Assen that year after he collided with Kenneth Heyer at high speed.

49.

Tom Boonen used to live in Balen, in the Flemish Region of Belgium until moving to Monaco in late 2005.

50.

Tom Boonen stayed there a few years until deciding to move back to Belgium in early 2012.

51.

In 2016, Tom Boonen paid back several million euros to the Belgian tax authorities for failing to declare his income while being a legal resident of Monaco.

52.

The investigators argued that Tom Boonen spent most of his time in Belgium and was therefore required to pay taxes in accordance with Belgian tax law.