A perfect week for Quick-Step

Tom Boonen can be very satisfied with how things went for him and his team at the recent Tour of Qatar. "We won almost everything here," he told Belgian media after the race. "Ah... c'mon, we won everything." Indeed, Quick-Step won five out of six stages in the Middle Eastern Emirate, Boonen himself took four of them, and teammate Wilfried Cretskens scored the overall victory.

The former world champ was especially happy that Cretskens took the yellow jersey home. "On Thursday, I could finally give something back to Wilfried," said Boonen. "He worked so hard for me all these years; he held me out of the wind when I won the World's in Madrid."

The team is now looking very optimistically to the new season. "We're in for a good year, I can feel it," he continued. "I'm not at a 100 percent yet - that would be crazy. I'm right on time for what's still to come." It is no secret that one of Boonen's targets this spring is Milano-Sanremo, and the fact that be beat Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi every single time in Qatar can only give him extra motivation.

"You can't say that the Tour of Qatar is a warming-up race anymore," Boonen added. "It was a war from start to finish, every day. They said my sprints against Petacchi were impressive..."