“For me it was a real test” - Cian Uijtdebroeks on strong to start to life at Visma | Lease a Bike with fourth place finish at O Gran Camiño

After a controversial change of teams from BORA-hansgrohe to Visma | Lease a Bike for this season, Cian Uijtdebroeks has got off to a strong start to life at his new outfit, as he finished fourth on the opening road stage of his debut race at O Gran Camiño.

The young Belgian rider led the chasing group over the line as his teammate Jonas Vingegaard took the victory on the stage and moved into the overall lead of the race. Uijtdebroeks now leads the youth classification ahead of Lenny Martinez, who he beat in the sprint at the finish.

In an interview with WielerFlits after the stage, Uijtdebroeks commented his form at this early stage in the season, as he stated that “for me it was a real test, because I am not yet ready to compete, but we definitely wanted to win the stage with Jonas”.

“The goal was to make it hard on the last climb and I think Wilco did that very well. I was a little too far due to the positioning, so I had to move up a bit, but then Jonas went remarkably early. I wanted to thin it out a bit more at the front,” said Uijtdebroeks as he reflected on the race. “After that I was pretty full until the finish. But the fact that we win the stage is fantastic”.