JELLE WALLAYS

Jelle Wallays likes to attack. During his five years with Topsport Vlaanderen, the Belgian won four races, including his two biggest one-day wins at Paris-Tours and Dwars Door Vlaanderen, all from breaks. He looked a perfect fit when he joined Lotto-Soudal in 2016, but the chances to race for himself were few and far between. He got a win that debut year, at the GP Cerami in a textbook way – after attacking with 13km to go – but it was a frustrating two seasons as domestique duties took over. Yet Wallays is sometimes set free to do what he does best, and 2018 became his most successful season. The 29year-old likes it when the conditions are tough and the racing hard, and at his first race of the year, on a hot, crosswind stage of the Vuelta San Juan, he held off the peloton to take the stage win. Bigger prizes were to come at the Vuelta, as Wallays landed his first grand tour stage victory. Despite a bunch sprint being expected on the flat stage 18, Wallays and Sven Erik Bystrøm played a tactical blinder, catching the peloton off guard when they thought the breakaway catch was going to be routinely straightforward, saving their legs to accelerate in the final 30km and hold them off. Wallays beat the Norwegian to the line, with the sprinters looming metres behind them. His team-mate Thomas de Gendt may get bigger plaudits, but Wallays may be one of the most underrated breakaway specialists in the peloton.