Matthew Walls is leaving BORA-hansgrohe after three years. The 25-year-old British cyclist, who is the current Olympic champion in the Omnium (track cycling event), will be competing for Groupama-FDJ starting in 2024. The French team has also announced the arrival of Cyril Barthe from Burgos BH.
Walls has been combining road and track cycling in his career but intends to focus more on road racing in the future. He began his professional career in 2021 with BORA-hansgrohe after completing a several-month-long internship with EF Education First in 2019. In his first season with the German team, he won two races: the Gran Piemonte and a stage of the Tour of Norway. In that same year, he became the Olympic champion in the Omnium in Tokyo.
Walls has not achieved any major success in the last two years. “My progress has stagnated due to many crashes,” he says on the Groupama-FDJ’s social media. “I fractured my hip in May of this year and only managed to return at the Tour of Britain in September. For me, Groupama-FDJ is the ideal team to regain my form.”
Cyril Barthe, on the other hand, comes from Burgos-BH. The Frenchman, now 27 years old, also previously raced for the Euskadi Basque Country-Murias and B&B Hotels-KTM teams, both of which disbanded after 2022. In the past season, Barthe won a stage of the Volta ao Alentejo (2.2).