MICHAEL MATTHEWS
SUNWEB
Michael Matthews, it seems, can do just about everything. A glance at his palmarès suggests as much and an episode from his amateur career all but proves it. In April 2010, a 19-year-old Matthews had never ridden on the cobbles before when he landed in Belgium with the Australian team for the U23 Tour of Flanders. A training ride on the eve of the race hardly whetted his appetite for the experience.
“I hated it because I think I had way too much air in my tyres and I was bouncing around the cobbles. I just said, ‘How can you race on these things?’” Matthews recalls. A day later, he placed second in Meerbeke, ahead of men like John Degenkolb and Luke Rowe. “I had no idea where I was, but I was super excited to attack on every climb that came up that day. I had a smile on my face the whole day.”
Despite that sparkling cameo, Matthews eschewed the cobbles in his early years as a pro, when his characteristics saw him bracketed as a latter-day Óscar Freire. His classics campaigns were thus built around San Remo and Amstel Gold, but though he placed third at each race in 2015, his undoubted qualities as a puncheur and sprinter have not yet added up to the sum of their parts in the spring. Remarkably for a rider who features among the most complete in the peloton, Matthews’ victories at the Grands Prix de Québec and Montréal last year were his first one-day wins at WorldTour level.
Since moving to Sunweb in 2017, Matthews has been nudged gently in the direction of the cobbles, riding E3 Harelbeke and GentWevelgem in the past two seasons. Encouraged by the early feedback from the experiment – he placed eighth at Gent-Wevelgem in 2017 and performed gamely last year despite breaking his shoulder barely a month beforehand – Matthews will prioritise the cobbles this season and make his debut at the Tour of Flanders.
“The team’s seen my numbers in the Ardennes and on the cobbles, and they reckon I’m actually more suited to the cobbles,” explains Matthews, who also won at Geraardsbergen in last year’s BinckBank Tour, a triumph that turned an ill-starred season on its head. “I’m not as experienced in the cobbled classics as I’d like to be at this point in my career, but all the characteristics of my riding style suit them.”
In 2018, Matthews carried a little extra mass into the cobbled races, reasoning that he might benefit from some additional power, but in 2019, he plans to compete in Flanders at his traditional Ardennes weight. Matthews reckons the Flemish and Ardennes classics present equivalent physical challenges.
“It probably sounds silly, but I don’t think of them as different races really,” he says. “They both have short, punchy climbs. One has cobbles and one doesn’t, but for me that doesn’t change a lot. I can ride uphill on cobbles and I can ride uphill on a normal road.”
The fundamental abilities that make Matthews a perennial challenger at Amstel Gold Race should translate smoothly to the cobbles. “He’s got good power over three to five minutes, he’s got really good power over one to two minutes, and he can sprint. All the tools are there,” says Brian Stephens, who coached Matthews at U23 level and joined Sunweb’s staff last year.
He hints, too, at a residual, psychological benefit to Matthews’ decision to tackle the pavé in 2019. In years past, the focus on Amstel Gold was almost overwhelming. “I think it was getting a little too intense,” Stephens notes. “We’re trying to let him go out and have a little bit of fun. He races best when he’s doing that.”
Milan-San Remo and Amstel remain on the agenda, of course, together with Flèche Wallonne and Liège, where Matthews placed fourth in 2017. There is a certain irony that La Doyenne is reverting to a flat finale just as he is shifting his attention towards the cobbles, though Matthews is not convinced the switch away from Ans is altogether suited to him.
“I think they’ll just ride harder earlier to get rid of the sprinters,” he grins, adding that he would prefer if Amstel still finished atop the Cauberg. “It was more individual and about who was the strongest on the day. Now there are so many different tactics going on, it makes it a little less fun for me.”
Matthews will race all the way through to Liège despite his emphasis on the cobbles. It’s a punishing schedule, but he believes that forgoing Roubaix will allow him to reboot in time for the Ardennes. It helps, of course, that he is not the only contender taking on such a heavy programme. “There are so many all-round riders in the peloton now, guys who can climb and sprint,” Matthews says. “So, yeah, why can’t you do the cobbles and the Ardennes?”