Michele said:
Err...this is a personal opinion but I wouldnt call Devolder exactly a "Boonen's lieutenant".
why not? He's the same as nuyens or steegmans, good riders alltogether but from the moment the weight of the team lands on their shoulders they often fail under the pressure..
nuyens won a number of nice races when he was still at quickstep where he benefited from a strong team and could ride knowing that the pressure was on the big guns like boonen and bettini, from the moment he moved to rabobank however and had to bear the pressure of being the big gun he didn't manage to win a single thing (his racing style is also part of the problem)
steegmans the same story, won two stages in the tour and two stages in paris nice while at quickstep, but failed to live up to the expectations when he left quickstep because he couldn't mentally bear the weight of having to perform in every sprint. A real shame since steegmans is a very talented rider and can do everything a guy like hushovd can do...
devolder is the same thing, a very talented rider but he doesn't seem to have racing intelligence and thus took his biggest wins after moving to quickstep and riding in boonens shadow. He won the ronde van vlaanderen at least once (2008) because boonen couldn't go after his teammate and the other riders were scared of taking boonen along to the finishline when going after him...
I do however recognise that lieutenant is perhaps a bad term for these boys, in dutch the proper word is "schaduwkopman", don't really know the corresponding word in english..;