This Friday, during the final stage of the Tour of Burgos, Matt Walls was able to take part in his first sprint in the colours of the Groupama-FDJ cycling team. On this occasion, he managed to grab ninth place, but was unable to find the opening in the pack to do better. In the end, the Briton and his team-mates finished the Spanish race with a modest result, with Sepp Kuss taking overall victory.
There were still 156 kilometres to go to finish off the 2024 edition of the Tour of Burgos on Friday, and from Frias to Condado de Treviño, it wasn’t a straight line for the riders. “We knew there was a possibility of a sprint, but we also knew it could be complicated, and it was,” confided Thierry Bricaud. But only three men took the lead in the early stages: Patrick Gamper (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Michael Leonard (INEOS Grenadiers) and Pim Ronhaar (Lidl-Trek). They also never enjoyed an advantage of more than three minutes over a peloton that was trying to be vigilant. Nonetheless, with thirty kilometres to go, and having negotiated the difficulties in the middle of the race, the trio still had a lead of more than two minutes. “We asked Eddy to go for a ride because we had a feeling it was going to be difficult to finish in a group”, Thierry continued. With twenty-three kilometres to go, the final difficulty on the course (3.7km at 4.5%) also reshuffled the cards and caused a bit of action. The strategy was simple,” said Thierry. There had to be a lot of people around Matt after the last climb to bring him back into the peloton, and that’s what we did. Rémy had to go along with the moves, which was also the case”.
“I’ve progressed step by step”, Matt Walls
Only two men were able to break away on the counter-attack behind a pair of Gamper-Leonard survivors, who continued to make life difficult for the peloton in the last fifteen kilometres. The peloton continued to make life difficult for them in the last fifteen kilometres, but the bunch regrouped a little, found some manpower and the gap gradually narrowed in the final. “We contributed to the chase in the final, with Enzo in particular. There wasn’t much choice”, added Thierry. Gamper and Leonard were still able to tackle the final kilometre in the lead, but the start of the sprint proved fatal for them and it was a pack that decided the winner, Pavel Bittner (DSM firmenich-PostNL). Today’s finish was quite difficult, I dropped off a bit on the climb, but the guys waited for me and brought me back well with ten kilometres to go”, said Matt Walls. I was in a good position for the finish, but I was caught by waves of riders on either side and got a bit stuck, which prevented me from really sprinting”. Matt found himself a little too quickly in front, and he couldn’t find the gap,” explained Thierry. He stayed where he was”. In the event, it was the ninth place that he lost on the line.
We can see the evolution, we can see that things are progressing, but he still needs to turn a corner and above all gain confidence,” commented Thierry. He wants to do well, but he needs to find his bearings. We need to keep sprinting, and things will start to look up. It’s the first time all year that I’ve really had the chance to sprint,” added Thierry. The guys did a really good job of getting me into position this week, especially on Monday. I’ve had quite a difficult start to the season, with a few crashes and my legs not up to scratch. The last two months have been good, and I’ve made progress step by step. I’ve got a really good feeling now, so I hope to get some more opportunities to sprint”. In terms of pure results, on the other hand, the Groupama-FDJ Cycling Team had to make do with fourth and ninth place in this week’s Iberian race. We know that Rémy and I came close to winning on the second stage,” concluded Thierry. There was a great opportunity, but the results are mixed”.
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