It was normal, but i'll explain. I launched the sprint for Goeleven, with boonen in the wheel. AT the 4km roadsign I let a gap with Boonen while the teammates began to sprint shortly after that. When steegmans launched his own sprint, Boonen did that too. That's how I did it ^^
ive experienced sprint results like this before. now i can only talk about PCM 2011-12, i never owned pcm06, but currently there is a bug that allows a well paced sprint train to unrealistically break away towards the end of the stage and make it all the way to line. it usually happens just when the break is caught, as the peleton for some reason slows down. its a silly bug and easily fixed but the problem was ignored by developers and allowed to continue in 2012. doesnt matter the difficulty it seems that it happens on easy-extreme. although i think most people will find it anecdotal that it happens most while in easy-normal mode.
CosmicOsmo, you're right, in PCM 2010 it happens too even on hard-extreme difficulty. It was easy to win flat stages in a row there with sprinters of average stats. But there was another problem with hilly/mountain ITT in almost all PCM. I played enough in PCM 2007, PCM 2010 & PCM 2011 and can say that if you play those ITTs in 3D, your riders have significant advantage on these profiles.