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Boonen clinches 11th win of season
 World champion Boonen has proved to be in unstoppable form this season HARELBEKE, Belgium -- Belgium's world road race champion Tom Boonen outsprinted breakaway companion Alessandro Ballan to win his third Harelbeke Grand Prix one-day race in a row. Boonen, 25, claimed his 11th victory of the season a little over a week before he will bid to claim his second consecutive Tour of Flanders crown. He thus becomes just the third rider, after Belgian great Rik Van Looy and Dutchman Jan Raas, to win the Harelbeke GP three times in a row. Since his stock went sky high last season, Boonen has often been unstoppable when it comes to fighting off the peloton's big guns. So it didn't take much for him to outsprint Lampre rider Ballan, who had prompted Boonen to follow him when he attacked the peloton on the Patersberg climb around 40km from the finish. "It was the best time to go for it," explained Boonen. "When a guy as dynamic as Ballan attacks you can't afford to ignore him." Together they took their lead to over a minute, and at the finish it was a minute and a half before Dutchman Aarrt Vierhouten finished in third place. Boonen's apparent ease on the cobblestones augurs well for next week's first big challenge of the Spring Classics campaign at Flanders. The Quick Step team's one-day specialist won at Flanders for the first time last year and secured a prestigious double when he took victory over the gruelling cobblestones of Paris-Roubaix a week later. Boonen added: "It's a superb victory, and has reassured me ahead of next week's race. At the start of the year I was a bit apprehensive about this season, especially wearing the (world champion) rainbow jersey, but my early season victories at the Tour of Qatar got me off to a great start. "Since then, I've been riding like a dream." Dekker returns to winning formMeanwhile, Dutch veteran Erik Dekker returned to winning form by taking the first of the three stages which make up the Criterium International in France. Dekker, who has struggled for form of late due to injury, outsprinted Italy's Tour de France hopeful Ivan Basso and Ukrainian Andriy Grivko - both of whom had been earlier breakaway companions. Basso, the Tour runner-up last year behind Lance Armstrong, is in second place just four seconds behind Dekker going into Sunday's final two stages - a hill climb followed by an afternoon time trial. Dekker did brilliantly to take the win after a 192km stage in difficult conditions, and where his Rabobank team had to fight off the sustained efforts of Basso's CSC team. The 34-year-old Dekker, a former winner of the old World Cup circuit which gave way to the Pro Tour last season, is in his last season as a professional and will later become a team manager with Rabobank. 
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