I’ve done a fair bit of sprint work under the guidance of a coach. Posted a bunch of articles on another thread:
Like @KWcycling said, you need to lift. Think in terms of a 2 year time horizon. Do sprint work at different cadences, learn what generates the most power at the end of the race. You don’t want to be shifting during the sprint, and you’ll likely be at 80-100rpm while approaching the finish, and I found it pays to figure out my “ideal” starting cadence while still having the ability to maintain power at high cadences (130-170rpm). Over time I learned that my biggest power output on an uphill finish happens when coming into the sprint at ~90rpm, and similarly you’ll learn over time what tends to produce the most power on flat finishes. Not that you always have control over that in a race situation.
That appears to be working very well for me, targeting a minimum of 5 hours/week on average of 7-8 hour weeks.