After an initially unlucky season start, marked by a serious injury suffered during a training session when he was hit by a car, Tony had the strength to recover and make it back to the top of his game, winning the TT and the final classification in the Tour of Belgium and the national championship TT. When everything seemed to be going smoothly, bad luck hit Tony once again during the Tour de France. A flat in the prologue cheated him of the chance to wear the first yellow jersey, and an insignificant fall the next day forced him to withdraw after a week of suffering caused by a fractured scaphoid. However, Tony proved to be a tenacious champion and at the end of the season he reaped the fruits of his labors. He was the individual and team TT World Champion and winner of the Tour of Beijing for the second time in a row. These important successes added an even greater dimension to his career, and in 2013 Tony will again be among the major stars on team OPQS.