WALLS COME TUMBLING DOWN AS BRADSHAW MAKES PODIUM
MATT WALLS admitted even he was surprised by his omnium dominance after securing Britain’s first track cycling gold medal of the Olympics.
The 23-year-old from Oldham was hardly considered the likeliest Team GB rider to top a podium but on the day Jason Kenny lost the individual sprint crown he had held since London 2012, he passed on the baton to his younger room-mate.
Walls may have followed up taking world bronze with European Championships gold last November but that was against a depleted field and his build-up to Tokyo had been disrupted by a positive Covid-19 test in March which saw him holed up in a Belgium hotel for two months and took a chunk out of his 2021 campaign.
‘I felt pretty good but I didn’t really know how I was coming into it,’ admitted Walls. ‘There was a bit of an unknown because the last track race I did was the Euros last year.
‘I’ve been going well on the road, getting in some quality racing, but I didn’t know how it would translate on the track, how the tactics would be, because it had been so long.’
As it turned out he never trailed after winning the opening scratch race, sharing the lead after the tempo race before moving clear again in the elimination leg.
He finished the time trial with a winning margin of 24 points from New Zealand’s Campbell Stewart, with Italy’s defending champion Elia Viviani taking bronze. Walls was kept out of the men’s team pursuit team, who finished seventh, to focus on the omnium, and said: ‘I came into the scratch race feeling good, came away with that win and then I knew I’d got a chance as long as I played it smart. I knew I’d got the legs so it could work out and it did.
‘I managed to get a good lead coming to the end. I came into that points race with a bit of a lead which was nice, it gave me a bit of breathing room.’ Walls will now look to double up in the Madison this weekend, riding alongside his Manchester housemate Ethan Hayter.
While Dutch world champion Harrie Lavreysen ended his own nineyear sprint reign, Kenny took some consolation from Walls’ triumph.
‘It never looked in doubt from the moment he rolled off the start line. He’s my room-mate but I can’t take all the credit, obviously,’ he joked.