The 22-year-old showed grit, determination and an amazing fighting spirit over the last three weeks.<\/p>\n
Junior Lecerf concluded the 80th edition of the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a in a strong 11th place overall, a result that confirmed not just his progress, but also the upward trajectory he has followed this season, one which has seen the young wolf win the Czech Tour and finish top ten at both the UAE Tour and the Tour de Romandie before starting the Spanish Grand Tour.<\/p>\n
Not just his results were impressive, but also the consistency he displayed and the way he kept fighting, as evidenced numerous times in these hard three weeks, where Junior punched above his weight on some of cycling\u2019s most brutal climbs \u2013 such at the Angliru or Bola del Mundo \u2013 showcasing the T-Rex Quick-Step jersey and his character. The 11th place in which he finished in Madrid, where the Vuelta came to a conclusion after more than 3000 kilometers, was Belgium\u2019s best general classification result in a Grand Tour this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a disappointment not being in the top ten of the overall standings, but at the end of the day, I can be happy with how this Vuelta went for us, but also on a personal level. We came close to a stage victory twice, we were in the breakaways, we fought every single time and showed the mentality and fighting spirit that make The Wolfpack so special, never giving up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be so close to the top ten on my second Grand Tour participation \u2013 and finish in a good position on some of the race\u2019s hardest mountain stages \u2013 shows the progress I have made since turning pro with T-Rex Quick-Step at the beginning of last year. At the same time, it\u2019s something that makes me confident that I can become better if I continue to work hard, and eventually fight for an important result in a three-week race.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo credit:\u00a0\u00a9Dario Belingheri \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 22-year-old showed grit, determination and an amazing fighting spirit over the last three weeks. Junior Lecerf concluded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,63361,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-137677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-soudal-quick-step-pro-cycling-team","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}