Boonen forced to skip team building camp

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Tom Boonen has been forced to miss Omega Pharma-QuickStep’s team building camp in Slovakia this week due to a bout of stomach flu. The four-time Paris-Roubaix winner was too ill to fly with his teammates to a military base in Lest on Monday and he will not join up with them before the camp concludes on Thursday.

“It’s impossible,” Omega Pharma-QuickStep press officer Alessandro Tegner told Het Laatste Nieuws. “We’re staying at a military base and came here by charter plane. And if Tom were to join us now, he’d be going back the next day in any case.”

Boonen is understood to be hopeful of recovering in time to participate in the “Boonen and Friends” charity cyclo-cross near his home in Mol on Saturday. The event, which is now in its fourth year, is in aid of the “Move to Improve” foundation, a charity which helps children with motor disabilities.

Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) and former cyclo-cross world champion Zdenek Stybar are among the star names expected to line up at the weekend.