OFF THE PAVÉ AND ON THE AIR
RENAAT SCHOTTE muses on the parallels between Boonen's radio playlist and his career
Yes, it’s him, Tom Boonen, live on the radio, playing his favorite songs. For this auspicious occasion, Belgium’s national radio station, Studio Brussel, has been rechristened. Today, it’s Studio Boonen. It says it all.
“Give him a fixed programme slot,” some listeners propose on Twitter. “Who knows, anything’s possible!” Boonen tweets in reply.
The broadcast sounds like Headbangers Ball with choices including a song by Body Count. It adds to Boonen’s image, like the tattoos covering his body. He had a certain nonchalance in the way he exposed himself to the outer world. But underneath that layer of cool there was a dedicated pro, training obsessively, eating carefully, trying macrobiotics as a Classics rider long before the nutritional era of sharp-edged Grand Tour contenders.
Tom’s on-air playlist is impressive, as was the playlist of his cycling career. If you look at the plain numbers he is the most successful cobbles specialist ever. Just think about his win tally on this terrain alone: Flanders (3), Gent-Wevelgem (3), Harelbeke (5) and Roubaix (4). The key moments in his career are seared in the cycling history of Flanders. The principal one being that rainy Roubaix back in 2002 when he emerged as the next big thing – a neo-pro finishing third in the legendary velodrome.
In the grey city of Roubaix that day, the mud covering Boonen’s face wasn’t capable of hiding his talent. It was there, standing on the podium in the centre of the velodrome that three-times Roubaix winner Johan Museeuw whispered in Boonen’s ear: “You are my successor.”
Every other young rider would have taken that compliment as an enormous honour, but Boonen was never fond of it. He preferred to create his own image. Boonen didn’t like being compared with others. He didn’t want to be the new Museeuw or the next Rik Van Looy. He wanted to be the first Tom Boonen. An ambition he lived up to with his intergalactic season in 2005. With that year’s unique Flanders-Roubaix-Worlds treble, his popularity in Belgium reached rockstar levels.
When you’re a cycling champion in Belgium it’s not easy to keep your feet on the ground or lead a normal life, let alone concentrate on the most important thing for a professional cyclist: to live solely for riding a bike. It led Boonen to escape to Monaco, although he didn’t stay long. Years before the end of his career he twirled back to his home region, Antwerp.
His explosive power earned him the nickname ‘Tornado’. That, along with some of the darkest moments of Boonen’s life and career, reminds me of another sportsman with a meterological moniker: Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins, the snooker world champion of 1972 and 1982.
Thankfully, Tom’s troubles with cocaine and alcohol didn’t plumb the same depths as Higgins. But Higgins also had another nickname: the People’s Champion. That same nickname also applies to Boonen. Through all his achievements he always stayed humble and available for the masses. Self confident, yes, but arrogance was never his way of dealing with people. His dialect slang gave him extra authenticity. He was always spontaneous, always available, even in defeat.
The Studio Boonen playlist continues. As the host asks him to sing along with a song that tattoo artist-turned-rapper Van Echelpoel wrote about him, Boonen reluctantly mumbles the chorus. It defines the man. ‘Act normally, that’s already crazy enough,’ as a popular Belgian saying goes.
Tom’s retired now, gone to enjoy his new normal. He’s earned it. But Belgian cycling will miss him.