Nat Bromhead
Aussie cycling legend Lachlan Morton has enjoyed one of his biggest victories to date, the 32yo EF rider winning UNBOUND 200 – the gruelling 320km gravel race in the USA.
Beating Chad Haga in a two man sprint to the line, Morton won with a time of 9:11:47 — the fastest time to date.
“I feel pretty grateful to have had the ride I did,” said Lachlan.
“In the finale, I thought to myself that no matter what pans out in this sprint I’m really happy with myself in the way that I executed the race, but also the way I prepared for the race. I did it in my own style and stayed true to the way I like to ride. I did a lot of adventure rides and enjoyed myself. I was training when I was on the bike, but then off the bike, that was where it ended and I was just in a very happy spot and found a really nice balance which is proving harder to do as it gets more competitive.”
The race started fast. Lachy attacked his group with 120 miles to go and rode solo to try to bridge to a small group of riders up the road. But a wrong turn saw him lose his lead and have to chase back on.
“I took it as a sign that I was supposed to go back to the bunch,” Lachlan continued. “To be honest, I don’t know what I was doing trying to go solo so far to go. In some ways the way it turned out, I’m actually stoked that I went the wrong way there.”
“In the final few miles there, I was like, ‘alright, I need to win this. I won’t forgive it myself if I let this one go,’” Lachlan said. “For me to win a sprint, I have to play it really perfectly. I don’t have a lot of watts to play with when it comes to the sprint. So, I was just pulling on all the sprint skills I learned when I was a young junior and that’s how it played out and I rode a perfect sprint.”
