Jelle Wallays (Lotto Soudal) let out a guttural roar as he crossed the line to win stage 18 of the Vuelta a Espaņa, and he was still screaming his head off as he rounded the bend beyond the finish line and wheeled to a halt by his team bus. It was a visceral display of emotion and it turns out it was all inspired by the rider most famous for wearing his heart on his sleeve, Thomas Voeckler. Speaking in his winner`s press conference in Lleida, Wallays recalled the uncanny similarities between Thursday`s Vuelta stage and the 2014 Paris-Tours, where, as a 25-year-old, he beat the Frenchman in a two-up sprint from the breakaway. `The first time I make it to finish line in a break was Paris-Tours and I learned a lot from Thomas Voeckler. Here I did the same,` he said.ADVERTISEMENT `In Paris-Tours we were with 11 guys, I think, and Voeckler already had many victories. He said `we go easy, easy, easy, easy, because everyone wants to sprint and if you close the gap too early they go on the attack`. So we went easy until 40 kilometres to go and then went hard. Then me and Voeckler we went full until one kilometre to go.` Wallays only had two companions this time, Sven Erik Bystrom (UAE Team Emirates) and Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH), but he issued the same messaged he`d heard four years previously. `We spoke immediately and everyone agreed we would accelerate in the last 45 kilometres,` he said. `We knew the peloton was playing with us - it`s always the same - but in the last 25km we still had two mins so we knew we had a chance.` Redemption
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