Recent Tour of Alberta stage winner Michael Matthews has continued his return to form ahead of the world championships, winning the bunch sprint for second place at Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec.

After an extremely active final two laps, Rigoberto Uran (Etixx-Quickstep) slipped off the front in the final kilometres and survived narrowly from a fast closing peloton.

Matthews went wide from the bunch to launch his sprint in attempt to bridge the gap but fell just short, awarded the same finishing time as Uran. Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha) rounded out the podium in third.

“My team did a lot of work for to place me in the final and I think we can be happy with this result,” Matthews said. "I can only thank them for the incredible work they did.”

Sports director Lorenzo Lapage also credited the work of the ORICA-GreenEDGE outfit that contributed to controlling moves in the final laps before also launching San Sebastian winner Adam Yates into a short-lived but dangerous move.

“Michael has shown again he is one of the guys to watch for the next races,” sport director Laurenzo Lapage said. “Beating Kristoff in a sprint, he has shown he is up there and it’s a positive sign before Montreal.

“What Uran did at the end was very strong. Maybe we needed someone at the end to help shut it down but hindsight is a wonderful thing and the guys rode really hard to support Michael.

“We had a plan to wait until the final laps and then make sure we were in all of the important breaks in the end. That was important.”