The Olympic gold medallist from Oldham suffered a heavy crash at the Ethias-Tour de Wallonie in June which has left him just returning to fitness for his home UCI ProSeries tour this week.
Matt Walls will be happy just to finish the Lloyds Tour of Britain as he ponders a return to the track ahead of the 2028 Olympics.
The Olympic gold medallist from Oldham suffered a heavy crash at the Ethias-Tour de Wallonie in June which has left him just returning to fitness for his home UCI ProSeries tour this week.
And having withdrawn from the Lidl Deutschland Tour on his return to the road in August, a crash on stage two from Boston to Skegness has left him happy to settle with just trying to cross the line on the final day in Earlston on Sunday.
“I’ve just been trying to ride into it and if we get opportunities, we’ll take them, but I ended up crashing on the way to Skegness, so we’ll just take it day-by-day,” said Walls.
“At this point, success would just be to finish it and survive. I came into it hoping for a decent result, but we’ll just see how it goes. The recovery from my crash in Belgium was quite a long one. I did quite a bit of damage and took quite a bit of time off, but I’m just taking it step-by-step and slowly building back up.”
Walls switched teams at the start of the year after not being renewed with World Tour team Groupama-FDJ and now rides on the Continental level Team Storck-MRW BAU. It represents a drop down for the track specialist, having struggled to find his place at the French team, but offers the opportunity for a reset on the road.
“It’s a nice environment. There are good riders and we all get on. It’s obviously a smaller team, but it just means we’re closer,” said the 28-year-old.
But with the LA28 Olympics now just two years away, Walls is undecided on whether a return to the track also beckons. Having won gold in the omnium at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics games, held in 2021, he suffered a horror crash at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games that saw him fly into the crowd.
Since then, Walls has not picked up any international medals on the track, with his two medals in Tokyo the last major honours to his name.
“I haven’t done much track over the last couple of years, really since my crash at the Commies,” he said. “I’m not really sure if I’m coming back and doing more. I want to but it’s just hard trying to find that balance between road and track.”
British Cycling is inspiring riders and fans across the country through the Lloyds Tour of Britain, bringing the sport to life and celebrating the joy of cycling through Britain’s biggest free-to-spectate cycling event. Visit britishcycling.org.uk
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