Long ride from the BMX track
HE missed his sister’s wedding so as not to compromise his preparations for a race.
He also goes by the nickname “Bling” for his penchant for sparkling adornment and lavish cars.
Meet Michael Matthews – flashy exterior but fiercely driven interior.
The 26-year-old Australian rider for Team Sunweb will tomorrow, barring freakish misfortune, become only the third Australian to win the Tour de France green jersey.
Matthews’ story is proof that when natural athletic gifts are nurtured by hard work and a stubborn determination, there is no ceiling.
The son of hairdresser Donna and butcher Allan, Matthews was raised in the southern Canberra suburb of Farrer as a BMX-mad kid.
He was racing them by seven before moving to motocross. But caught up in the wrong crowd at school, Matthews could easily have gone “the other way”.
That he didn’t might be due in large part to Des Proctor, the PE teacher at Matthews’ Melrose High School who opened some doors for the kid whose natural fitness caught his eye.
Proctor urged Matthews to attend a talent identification session with the ACT Academy of Sport at 15. Without preparing, Matthews recorded a 15.8 beep test.
“They basically said I’d be good at rowing or cycling,” Matthews said years later.
“Rowing didn’t seem very interesting and cycling was still to do with bikes ... but I’d never thought about wearing tights and riding a bike with skinny tyres.
“I actually didn’t even like cyclists before that, I just thought they were annoying people riding on the road.”
But at 16, a fire was set off inside Matthews and nothing was going to put it out.
After six months in the sport he became an under-17 national champion. He would follow that with a world championship under-23 road race title and got an angel tattoo across his back to celebrate because he felt like he had wings in Geelong that day.
A move to Europe followed in 2011 where he spent two years with Dutch outfit Rabobank and five with Aussie team Orica-GreenEDGE before joining Team Sunweb.
This is a man who, despite the loud appearance, remains a very much reserved person.
Speaking before the start of Stage 18 – his first day in green at the Tour de France – Matthews was struggling to put his achievement into context.
“This has been an incredible journey,” he said.
“It still feels surreal. I went to bed last night in my podium jersey cuddling my little green martian from yesterday’s podium.
“I sent the picture to our team WhatsApp group saying, ‘please let this be real so I can wake up in this jersey again’ and it’s real.”
Matthews will join Robbie McEwen (2002, 2004, 2006) and Baden Cooke (2003) as the only Australians to have won the green jersey.
England’s Chris Froome was well placed to take the overall title for a fourth time as he headed into today’s time trial.