- Born
- Nicknames
- The Balen Bomb
- Tornado Tom
- Height6′ 3½″ (1.92 m)
- Tom Boonen is a Belgian former professional cyclist active from 2002 to 2017. Infamous for his sprint and his helmsmanship on cobblestones, Boonen is a four-time Paris-Roubaix and a three-time Tour of Flanders winner. He has won E3 Saxo Classic a record five times, dethroning Rik Van Looy. In 2005, he became UCI World Road Champion in Madrid, Spain. He had a longstanding rivalry with the Swiss Fabian Cancellara in cycling's spring classics. Boonen has won six individual stages of the Tour de France (all were bunch sprints). He won the Tour de France points classification (green jersey) in 2007.
After Boonen came close to a second world road title in Doha, Qatar (winning a bronze medal, losing to Peter Sagan while Mark Cavendish took silver) as well as a fifth victory in Paris-Roubaix (he finished as runner-up) in the 2016 season, the Belgian retired on 9 April 2017 with a thirteenth place in Paris-Roubaix, which has always been his favourite race.
Boonen started a new life and career as a racing driver (mainly driving in the 24H Series) in BelCar and NASCAR Elite 2. He is a son of former cyclist André Boonen.
- IMDb mini biography by: Cnuddearthur
- ChildrenJacqueline BoonenValentine Boonen
- ParentsAndré Boonen
- Folksy personality.
- Northern Antwerp accent.
- Relativizes himself.
- Charismatic appearance.
- He has won at least one professional cycling race in all of his 16 seasons as a pro. His counter was never at zero by the end of the cycling season.
- His legs were cast in bronze on the occasion of a statue in his honor on top of the Taaienberg slope in Flanders, Belgium. The Taaienberg is a slope where he used to accelerate a dozen of times during his professional cycling career. Boonen was present at the unveiling 'his legs in bronze' which occurred in January 2023.
- He had his own star comic: "De avonturen van Tommeke" ("The adventures of Tommeke"). Targeting a children's audience, the series was drawn by Patrick Van Oppen and consists of two albums, one from 2007 and one from 2008. It saw Tom Boonen, depicted as a ten year old.
- In addition to racing driver, he became a podcast presenter after his cycling career. He co-hosts the podcast Wielerclub Wattage (2023) with host Ruben Van Gucht and fellow former professional cyclists Jan Bakelants and Dirk De Wolf, starting in the spring of 2023. Wielerclub Wattage instantly got popular in Flanders, Belgium.
- One of his more famous moments is his loss to Fabian Cancellara in the 2010 Tour of Flanders. Whereby it was claimed that Cancellara would have used a motor (mechanical doping) on his bike, a much discussed topic within the cycling world.
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