Michael Matthews came from the remnants of the peloton as they overtook groups in the final kilometres of the elite men’s road race at the Wollongong 2022 world championships, sprinting to second behind Christophe Laporte (France) from the group to clinch the bronze medal with Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) winning solo.
“We were talking within the peloton whether we were still racing for anything,” said Matthews in the post-race press conference, “it’s really difficult to get information during the world championships.
“It was really attacking the final time up Mt Pleasant and then the racing was on and we kept catching bunches, even in the last 500 metres of the race. I saw the French team leading out for Laporte, I jumped on the back of that and did my thing in the sprint.
“Even afterwards, I didn’t know where I finished, I found out a few minutes later that I was actually third.”
The news of his third place eventually filtered through, and Matthews was ushered to the world championships podium for the third time in his career, his second bronze medal not just a consolation for the Canberran.
“The level of cycling at the moment is so high, to be up here with this bronze medal is amazing,” said Matthews. “It was a really good team performance today and I just wanted to finish off the best way I could.”
The first riders active from Australia were Lucas Plapp and Ben O’Connor as they followed a large move over Mt Keira. They then jumped clear and pushed across a three-minute gap to the early breakaway with a smaller attack and riding solidly to make their way over the riders at the front of the race.
Plapp did the longest turns at the front of the breakaway, with his effort expended seeing him dropped on the fifth last ascent of the climb of Mt Pleasant when Samuele Batistella (Italy) forced an elite selection in the front group, with O’Connor looking strong.
Belgians forced the pace on that same lap, at that stage just under two minutes behind the leaders on the road with 76 kilometres remaining. That saw a move with Remco Evenepoel (Belgium), Romain Bardet (France), Nairo Quintana (Colombia) and Australian Jai Hindley along with 20 others go clear up the road chasing the breakaway.
O’Connor’s front group was caught 17 kilometres later by those chasers, the next time up the climb with Hindley following an acceleration by Evenepoel over the top of the climb that saw O’Connor dropped, along with much of the original break.
From there, Hindley was in the best position, with Belgium driving the move for eventual winner Evenepoel appeared to be trying to conserve energy and follow moves. When Evenepoel launched what would be the winning move, only Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan) was able to follow, the race win riding away up the road.
Back in the peloton it was Simon Clarke with Michael Matthews within a largely uninspired main bunch, with many of the major nations having riders up the road already, albeit not in a winning position with Evenepoel dropping Lutsenko and stretching out his advantage at the head of the race.
That changed rapidly over the final lap as attacks over the final ascent of Mt Pleasant forced the pace, with the momentum of the group seeing them catch all the remnants of previous attacks apart from the rampant Evenepoel. Matthews found himself in a position to sprint, following the French leadout to finish third and claim a medal in his home world championships.
