"Tornado" Tom Boonen (Quick.Step) will line up as one of the top favourites in today's 93rd Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen in Schoten (Antwerp). After winning three prestigious classics in the last two and a half weeks, including a very impressive Ronde van Vlaanderen/Paris-Roubaix double, Boonen hopes to go on holidays with a repeat Scheldeprijs win. Last year, he won in a bunch sprint ahead of Robbie McEwen and Simone Cadamuro, and this year, McEwen will be one of his main rivals again, although the Australian hasn't raced recently after getting sick. McEwen has been training for two weeks, but was uncertain of his form, and now has his sights set on the Giro d'Italia.
The race starts in Antwerp's Grote Markt, and does a 149 km loop to the north and east, before coming back to Schoten to finish with three 17 km circuits. The parcours is flat, favouring the sprinters, but there are seven cobbled sections that generally make things interesting. With the slightly wet conditions today, a bunch sprint is not a certainty.
