Michael Matthews
Not many under-23 riders are high profile enough to have the media refer to them by their nickname before they’ve even turned pro. But when Michael Matthews won the U23 world road race at his home championships in Geelong, Australia, in 2010, the headlines already read of ‘Bling’, a nod to the diamond earrings and chain he always wore around his neck.
Matthews’ emergence into the peloton came at a time when sprinters were evolving. Being fast wasn’t always enough any more. Grand tours began increasingly throwing small climbs into their ‘flat’ stages, sprinters’ classics such as Gent-Wevelgem became lumpier and even the Tour de France’s green points jersey - traditionally the ‘sprinters’ jersey’ - changed its rules to favour hybrid riders, who could consistently pick up points across the entire race, not just win a haul of stages.
Matthews fit the mould. He’s fast - not as powerful as others such as Marcel Kittel or Dylan Groenewegen in a drag race - but he can hold his own in a bunch finish. He’s a decent climber and if the racing is tough and the peloton gets whittled down, even better. Reduced, small sprint groups, after a wearing race, are ideal for him. It just so happened that another rider, also cut from the same cloth and named Peter Sagan, turned pro at the same time as Matthews, and perhaps in another era the Australian’s palmarès would be more decorated by now. Currently, Sagan has won 21 races where Matthews has finished in the top 10 - including his three world titles, where Matthews finished second, fourth and third - to Matthews’ four wins over Sagan’s top 10s.
Matthews’ volume of wins is low compared to other sprinters - he averages around four a season - but what he lacks in quantity he makes up for in quality. Of his
36 pro victories, 24 are at WorldTour level, including a current consecutive streak of 12 WorldTour wins that goes back to 2016. He wears his heart on his sleeve and perhaps most impressively tends to perform best when his back is against the wall. In 2018, he turned around the disappointment of not being selected for Australia at the Worlds by winning the Canada GPs in Québec and Montréal. Last September, he returned to win in Canada again after a summer of disappointment and constant nearmisses at the Tour.
And when Matthews is on form, he’s untouchable. His win on stage 3 of the 2015 Giro, while wearing the maglia rosa, came on a hilly stage into Sestri Levanti that featured a category 2 climb 40km from the finish. He not only survived, but stayed out of sight all day to conserve energy to execute a perfectly timed sprint, only hitting the front of the bunch exactly when he needed to. A year later, he and Orica-GreenEdge again pulled off a tactical masterclass to get the better of Sagan in Rodez at the Tour. Knowing Sagan typically had the speed to win, the Australian team used their numbers, packing the breakaway with riders and attacking Sagan repeatedly to tire him out ahead of the final sprint, which Matthews duly won.