Wallays slips away for solo World Ports victory

24-year-old Belgian Jelle Wallays took his first professional victory in spectacular fashion in the opening stage of the World Ports Classic. The Topsport Vlaanderen rider was the last man standing from a five-man breakaway on what should have been a day of the normal release-and-catch sprint-friendly stage. But without race radios, the MTN-Qhubeka and Omega Pharma-Quickstep teams mis-timed their efforts and fell 26 seconds shy of catching the solo escapee Wallays.

Their mistake was Wallays' coup, as he seized not only the stage victory but the race, points classification and best young rider classification leads.

"I don't believe it but it's very nice for the team, and also for myself," Wallays said, adding that his inspiration was the ride of Tony Martin, who soloed for nearly 175km before being narrowly denied a stage in the Vuelta a Espana. "Nobody believes you can be alone before the peloton, but I do a little bit of Tony Martin. It's fantastic to finish alone."

Wallays was part of a breakaway on the 165km stage from Antwerp to Rotterdam together with Topsport teammate Kenneth Vanbilsen, Jacob Rathe (Garmin Sharp), Reinier Honig (Crelan-Euphony) and Kevin Van Melsen (Accent Jobs-Wanty). The five men managed to break free after the day's first sprint in Brecht after 15.5km.

Alessandro Petacchi (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) took the bonus seconds over Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) and Gerald Ciolek (MTN-Qhubeka), and it seemed those riders would be the protagonists for the stage and overall race. However, it was revealed later that the peloton was led off-course at a roundabout with 46km to go, adding three minutes to the breakaway's advantage and making the chase significantly more difficult.

With 3km to go, Wallays, who left his companions behind with 23km to go, still had a lead of a minute, and all the horsepower in the world was not going to bring him back. When the Omega Pharma train finally took over from Qhubeka, it was far too late, and Greipel shook his head in disbelief after taking the sprint over Petacchi for second, the 26 gap to Wallays seemingly insurmountable for the general classifcation of the two-stage event.

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