It’s been a long journey of re-invention, effort and belief for the Australian star of cycling to make it four Tour de France stage wins for his career.
It looked like another case of being oh so close for Michael Matthews. He’d done a mountain of effort to make the breakaway, bridging over late, attacking with over 40 kilometres to go, then riding away from the others on the steep final climb to Mende. Tour of Flanders winner Alberto Bettiol loomed on the 10 per cent average slopes, crossing over to the Canberran and passing him.
There was a moment on the steepest slopes of the climb, where head down Matthews ceded a few lengths to the Italian, and reached down to his left thigh, and the thought of those watching - or at least, my thought - was ‘oh no, let down by cramps’. Matthews held tough about 20 metres behind, then kicked hard on the shallower gradients near the top of the climb, catching then jumping clear of Bettiol.
From there, the downhill run to the finish line became a moment to lap up the atmosphere and celebrate for the Australian as he opened his arms to the sky to accept the applause of the crowd. It was the same on the podium, the tattoo reading ‘Believe’ prominent on his neck.
It’s taken a lot of that belief to get Matthews back into the winner’s circle. Matthews has backed himself at every stage of his career, that has seen him metamorphose from a precociously talented young sprinter, to a classics leader, a green jersey winner, Australia’s best hope for medals in major events all the way to a rider searching for a new direction as others got faster and faster.
He went to Team Sunweb after a conflict with the ambitions of Simon Gerrans overlapped a bit too much within Australian squad Orica-BikeExchange. A spell of success, particularly in the classics and in winning the green jersey at the Tour de France was the reward for finding his own path and leadership.
Team Sunweb controversially left him out of their 2020 Tour de France, a decision that seemed validated when they won three stages of that year’s race with a more varied approach. Matthews became one of a growing number of riders to force a switch away from the German team to return to back to Australian WorldTour Team BikeExchange-Jayco, with team owner Gerry Ryan a big part in the making the move a reality.
Matthews was the team’s charismatic face, but it was a frustrated one as time and time again, one or two riders were too good. There was just one win to show in his one and half years since returning to the squad at the start of 2021.
Part of it is the Goldilocks problems with Matthews set of abilities. He’s not the fastest sprinter, does not have the best power-to-weight ratio over longer climbs and with some of the transcendent talents like Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic and good friend Tadej Pogacar all possessing some mix of climbing and sprinting abilities, there are a lot of finishing climbs which we would say are early career Michael Matthews climbs, that actually suit one of those riders mentioned above slightly better these days.
Too shallow, and the more powerful van Aert and van der Poel excel, too steep or long and it’s in the range of Pogacar and Roglic. There was precious little of a Goldilocks zone left where Matthews could beat both the better sprinters and climbers. We saw that on stages 6 and 8 of this year's Tour de France, with van Aert and Pogacar taking wins ahead of second-placed Matthews, with the Australian frustrated, saying “I think next time it’s my turn”.
He had to do it in a different manner, making the breakaway, then attacking again on the rolling hills. His final climb performance was as much one of endurance as explosion, another sign that the Australian has plenty of ways to still win a bike race. I’ve heard other riders say of Matthews that he tries so hard, that they’re inspired to find that extra level of effort that he seems to recruit in those toughest moments of a race.
Now 31, it’s not just his own will that drives him but his family, and it was a touching moment in his winner’s interview when he talked of what motivated him as he battled up the final climb.
"I was just thinking of my daughter on that final climb the whole way up to the finish, and my wife, for how much sacrifice they make for me to make my dreams come true,” said Matthews.
"Hopefully today I showed them the reason why we sacrifice so much."
The Tour de France continues with Stage 15, a likely sprint stage to the medieval town of Carcassonne as the peloton continues its journey from the Alps to the Pyrenees. Watch on the SBS SKODA Tour Tracker from 8.55pm AEST, with the SBS and SBS On Demand broadcast starting from 9.30pm AEST.
