{"id":34565,"date":"2025-07-30T23:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T23:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/34565\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T23:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T23:41:10","slug":"corbin-strong-takes-first-gc-victory-at-tour-de-wallonie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/34565\/","title":{"rendered":"Corbin Strong takes first GC victory at Tour de Wallonie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corbin Strong claimed the first GC victory of his pro career at the Tour de Wallonie, with the bonus seconds he earned for finishing second in Wednesday\u2019s fifth and final stage wrapping up the win.<\/p>\n

Strong<\/a> continued his incredibly consistent week \u2013 one in which he finished every stage on the top 10 \u2013 with an assured performance on stage 5, which took place on a typically-Belgian circuit around Bertrix.<\/p>\n

Unfazed by the hardest day of the race, which featured 3,420 meters of elevation, the Kiwi never looked like relinquishing the race\u2019s distinctive orange jersey. <\/p>\n

Indeed, until the final kilometer, it appeared that five riders from the day\u2019s 12-man breakaway would stay clear of the peloton until the finish. However, on the uphill approach to the line, all-but stage winner Cl\u00e9ment Izquierdo (COF) were caught by Strong, who reiterated his dominance over the race with an eye-catching sprint. <\/p>\n

\"Corbin<\/p>\n

Having started the day with a one-second advantage, Strong ultimately won the race by nine seconds over Mathias Vacek (LTK). <\/p>\n

He says: \u201cI\u2019m really, really happy to win this race. This season hasn\u2019t gone the way I hoped it would go, so to come here and take the overall win is a really, really nice feeling. Hopefully, this is the start of a good second half to the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy teammates did a really good job at the start, riding a solid pace to keep the breakaway within check, but we weren\u2019t really too bothered about the stage win. Obviously, I only had one second on Vacek coming into today, so it was actually better for us if the breakaway took all the time bonuses. The guys did a really good job of keeping it within about three minutes, and then in the last few kilometers, Lidl \u2013 Trek took over. <\/p>\n

\"IPT<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that point on, I knew I had to just stay in the wheel of Vacek. I couldn\u2019t let him out of my sight, and I knew that if we were coming to the line and some time bonuses were on offer, I needed to beat him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty touch-and-go at the finish. I really didn\u2019t want us to catch the breakaway, but I could see them getting closer and closer, and I also knew I had pretty good legs. I came close to the stage win, but I\u2019m really happy to wrap the GC up today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consistency was key to Strong\u2019s success. After winning Saturday\u2019s opening stage in Nassogne<\/a>, he also finished second on stage 4 and fourth on stage 3. <\/p>\n

This GC victory also makes up for how last year\u2019s Tour de Wallonie ended for the 25-year-old. He finished second overall, level on time with winner Matteo Trentin, having been controversially relegated for his sprint on stage 4 \u2013 something that ultimately cost him the GC after it was decided on countback.<\/p>\n

\"Corbin<\/p>\n

Sports Director Pat McCarty praised Strong and his teammates for their efforts this week, saying: \u201cThe guys were pretty amazing all week. They were all on the same page, and they adapted and communicated well.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, we put everything behind Corbin because he\u2019s riding so well. We could see that on day one, when he won. It was like \u2018okay, this is what we\u2019re doing\u2019. And we thought we could win the race. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have everybody committed like that and working together, it\u2019s not easy, but it\u2019s definitely very, very doable. We avoided some bad luck this week, and we avoided mishaps \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t say everything went right, but, in the end, we had a really strong team and the strongest rider in the race, so it feels pretty sweet to get it done. \u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corbin Strong claimed the first GC victory of his pro career at the Tour de Wallonie, with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-34565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34565","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=34565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}