Matt Walls powers to Gran Piemonte 2021 victory ahead of some of the world's best sprinters
The British Olympic gold medallist made it through the chaos to out-sprint the field
Matt Walls sprinted to his second win in his first year as a professional rider at the Gran Piemonte Classic in Italy, beating Giacomo Nizzolo among others.
Walls, who rides for Bora-Hansgrohe, showed that he had a superb turn of speed to put in a hard acceleration to the line. Walls' first career win was at the Tour of Norway, this year.
The 23-year-old managed to get through the gaps with Nizzolo (Qhubeka-NextHash) taking second and teenager Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma) holding off Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) for third.
>>> 2021 Cycling Weekly awards - voting open and shortlisted riders announced
The penultimate Italian Autumn Classic of the season, Gran Piemonte, took place between Rocca Canavese and Borgosesia over 168km featuring a few climbs but a flat finish.
Five riders went up the road early on and got a maximum gap of three minutes. Those riders were Marc Soler (Movistar), Matthias Skjelmose (Trek-Segafredo), Manuele Boaro (Astana-Premier Tech), Marco Frapportti (Vini Zabu) and Sylvain Moniquet (Lotto-Soudal), with Frapportti being dropped after about 60km of racing.
Their gap started to tumble just before the halfway point of the race with all the major climbs dealt with. The peloton brought the gap down to two minutes with 85km to go as the sprinters’ teams took control.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
It was held at just under a minute by the peloton up until 35km to go as the gap suddenly dropped to 22 seconds which saw Boaro put in a move with Soler looking to join him as Skjelmose and Moniquet dropped away.
The young riders did make it back to the two attackers though as they continued to work with 33km to go and a 15-second gap.
They were finally caught with 27km to go but Boaro tried yet again. He was caught just a kilometre later. Euskaltel-Euskadi tried a couple of times to get out of the bunch in the final 20km but nothing was getting away.
Kooij crashed with 18km to go but the 19-year-old sprinter worked hard and did get back on with his team, who were waiting to bring him back towards the front. Jumbo-Visma got to the front with 8km to go along with Bahrain Victorious and Movistar.
Ineos Grenadiers were the next team to come up along with Astana-Premier Tech and Jumbo-Visma at the 3km to go mark. Biniam Ghirmay (Intermarché) also looked to get a good position on Nizzolo and his Qhubeka-NextHash train.
A very tight chicane saw multiple riders pushed out of contention including Elia Viviani (Cofidis) where, thankfully, no-one came off their bike.
Jumbo-Visma took control of the bunch into the closing 600 metres but a gap opened with about 200 metres to go and Walls kicked for the line. He had a perfect uninterrupted line all the way to the finish, whereas Nizzolo had to come from way back.
Gran Piemonte was the final Italian Classic before the last Monument of the season, Il Lombardia, which takes place on Saturday, October 9, closing out multiple riders seasons.
Results
Gran Piemonte 2021: Rocca Canavese to Borgosesia (168km)
1. Matt Walls (GBr) Bora-Hansgrohe, in 3-34-47
2. Giacomo Nizzolo (Ita) Team Qhubeka-NextHash
3. Olav Kooij (Ned) Team Jumbo-Visma
4. Matteo Trentin (Ita) UAE Team Emirates
5. Biniam Ghirmay (Eri) Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux
6. Jakub Mareczko (Ita) Vini Zabù
7. Riccardo Minali (Ita) Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux
8. Arvid de Kleijn (Ned) Rally Cycling
9. Amaury Capiot (Bel) Team Arkéa-Samsic
10. Stefano Oldani (Ita) Lotto-Soudal, all at the same time
Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access
Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription
Join now for unlimited access
Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.