Corbin Strong completed a perfect day for Israel-Premier Tech by winning the bunch sprint on stage 2 of the Tour de Wallonie, also moving into the race leader’s orange jersey in Ouffet after a tough day of racing.
Strong was perfectly led out by Israel-Premier Tech, who were active throughout the day to keep things together for the versatile sprinter before leading him into the dragging uphill sprint finish, where he held off a charge from Emilien Jeannière (TotalEnergies). It was a double French podium on stage 2 as Jeannière was followed in by Paul Penhoët (Groupama - FDJ) who took his second third place in as many days.
Pre-stage race leader Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) struggled throughout the tougher 188.2km stage from Saint-Ghislain to Ouffet but managed to hang onto the back of the aggressive bunch heading into the finale. He moved up but ran out of steam to produce any sprint, only managing to finish in the bunch and ceding the race lead to Strong.
This was Strong's first victory of the 2024 season and the third of his career, after netting many podium finishes throughout the year.
“I’m really happy with it. It’s been a long period without racing so I’ve been thinking about this week here for a couple of months now. Training went really well, I had a small injury after my last race so recovered from that and really happy with where the form is,” said Strong
“If you watched the stage, they were incredible today. It’s such a privilege to be a part of this team. They were incredible today. I even thought to myself in the last three kilometres with the work my teammates had done today, ‘I better pull this one off’ because they all rode so strong. Schultxy, Dylan and Clarkey just did a dream lead-out.
“I always think in a finish like this, If I’m not coming from too far back, it suits me really well and I had a lot of confidence in myself today.”
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