Jelle Wallays

Jelle Wallays
	Jelle Wallays (2015)
To person
Date of birth	11th May 1989 (age 31)
nation	Belgium
discipline	Street
height	185 cm
Racing weight	77 kg
To the team
Current team	Lotto Soudal
function	driver
Team (s)
2011–2015 ; 2016–	Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise ; Lotto Soudal
Most important successes
	Paris – Tours 2014, 2019 ; Dwars door Vlaanderen 2015 ; a stage Vuelta a España 2018
	Last updated: September 29, 2018

Jelle Wallays (born May 11, 1989 in Roeselare ) is a Belgian road cyclist .

Career

In 2007 Jelle Wallays won one stage each in the junior class at Závod Míru and at the Sint-Martinusprijs Kontich . In the 2009 season he drove for the Belgian club team Beveren 2000-Quick Step. Here he finished fifth in the U23 event at Paris-Roubaix and won the one-day race Zillebeke-Westouter-Zillebeke. In 2010 he was successful at Gent-Staden, at the Grand Prix Claude Criquielion, at a stage of the Tour de Namur and at the U23 edition of Paris-Tours . At the end of the season he drove for the Belgian professional Continental Team Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator as a stagiaire from 2011 onwards.

His greatest success to date was in 2013 after a 30-kilometer solo journey on the first stage of the World Ports Classic . In 2014 he won the classic Paris-Tours in a two-man sprint against Thomas Voeckler . The two drivers ran away with nine other drivers shortly after the start.

In 2015 he won the Belgian semi-classic Dwars door Vlaanderen after breaking away from his group of four with one kilometer to go, while his team-mate Edward Theuns came second.

In 2016 Wallays then moved to the Belgian UCI WorldTeam Lotto Soudal . After two comparatively unsuccessful seasons, Jelle Wallays was able to secure his first WorldTour victory at the Vuelta a España 2018 on the 18th stage , after having been in a breakaway group for almost the entire stage, the peloton barely from in the last hundred meters could stay away and finally defeated his escape companion Sven Erik Bystrøm in a sprint.