He has come so with regards to doing that if truth be told, too. Matthews has completed 2nd, 3rd two times and fourth within the 12 months’s first Monument one-day race. With six finishes altogether within the best ten, no different rider within the WorldTour peloton has extra.
Jayco-AlUla’s famous person sprinter-puncheur has had greater than 40 wins in his profession, playing level wins in all 3 Grand Excursions, and has a Excursion de France inexperienced jersey putting in his cloth cabinet. However professional biking’s longest one-day race has transform his white whale. Milan-San Remo fits his versatility, sturdiness and completing velocity so neatly, but its trophy has remained inside of achieve, however tantalisingly out of his clutch.
There are such a lot of techniques to win Milan-San Remo, with a dynamic which will alternate within the flick of a tools stage or twitch of a contender’s muscle fibre at the Poggio. Underlining how difficult the feat is, there have solely been one-time champions since Matthews’ compatriot Matt Goss triumphed in 2011. No person has claimed back-to-back victories since German sprinter Erik Zabel in 2000 and 2001.
Matthews concurs that the marathon March tournament is among the recreation’s toughest races to triumph over. “Because it’s so open to a lot of different scenarios,” he says. “Other classics normally come down to similar ones every year, but I think a lot of guys can get over the Cipressa and Poggio these days. There’s a mixture of sprinters, of climbers, of protagonists, so you’re not really sure exactly what’s going to happen.
“It’s a bit of a lottery, let’s say: you make your move, and sometimes it’ll pay off, and other times, it won’t. You’ve got to gamble on one decision and stick with that, hopefully it works out. It hasn’t for me yet.”
Milan-San Remo isn’t just some other motorbike race or a field being casually ticked for the Australian veteran. This is a ancient tournament which resonates on a deeply private stage for a number of causes. “Firstly, I love racing in Italy. And secondly, it’s 30 kilometres from Monaco, where I’ve lived for the last 12 years. I train on those roads every single day,” Matthews says. He reckons that he has finished the race’s final, finale-shaping hill, the Poggio, 100 instances and is aware of each nook.
“It’s such a beautiful race. And I think the passion the fans have for it, being the first Monument of the season, it’s always super special to have a good result there to sort of set up the season,” he provides.
“It really suits my characteristics well. A long race and then a really crazy, hectic final: I love that stuff. Even when I talk about the race, I get tingles. I’ve been so close so many times. I would be very disappointed not to stand on the top step of the podium in Sanremo in my career.”
Signal as much as the Musette – our subscriber-only newsletterMatthews “a mess” after agonising 2024 close to omit
Matthews can not get a lot nearer than he did in 2024. He made it over the Poggio in a dozen-strong workforce of favourites whittled down via a number of fierce assaults from his pal Tadej Pogačar. He gave his Slovenian pal a boost to the race final 12 months, however there have been to be no niceties when it got here to going for glory.
Mathieu van der Poel’s presence within the workforce used to be the most important, placing a lid on Pogačar’s transfer and chasing down different unhealthy assaults, retaining it in combination for Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jasper Phlipsen. Best that dynamic duo and Lidl-Trek pairing Jasper Stuyven and Mads Pedersen had numbers up entrance, in a position to orchestrate a lead-out.
Locked onto Pedersen’s wheel, Matthews introduced his dash and hit out in entrance. Philipsen adopted in his slipstream and edged forward within the final moments, successful at the motorbike throw via the width of a wheel rim.
“Everything looked like it was going really well until the last 25 metres when my glasses flew off, hit my front wheel and went flying up in the air. I’ve never seen this happen in cycling before,” Matthews stated.
Matthews overlooked out at the 2024 identify via a whisker (Symbol credit score: Zac Williams/SWPix.com)
“Being a couple of centimetres away from winning a Monument was a hard one to swallow,” he recollects. “It took a long time, basically until the morning of the Tour of Flanders [a fortnight later] to really get over it. I think those next few races I did, my head was all over the place. I couldn’t focus. I didn’t really want to be at races. I was a bit of a mess, honestly.”
The style during which he narrowly misplaced the race used to be a dialogue level within the following days. Nearly a 12 months on, Matthews doesn’t consider he made a mistake via retaining an opening open at the limitations for Philipsen, who speeded up previous within the final 25 metres.
“It’s one of those fine lines. I felt a little push from my hip, maybe that moved me a little bit,” Matthews stated. “But I’m also not a rider that’s gonna put a guy in a barrier to win a bike race. If I did close the door, maybe he protests, and I get disqualified. I was running that fine line in that Sanremo. I wouldn’t do anything differently – apart from keeping my glasses on my head.”
While you re-watch Matthews’ dash, he has some degree. He begins in the course of the street, carves left, following the shortest trail of the street, proper against the median, then left once more against the limitations within the ultimate seconds ahead of straightening. Any longer deviation, or pinning the Belgian speedy guy in opposition to the limitations, would almost definitely have sealed his destiny with the commissaires.
A supporting function for Oscar Freire
His newest outcome used to be a a long way cry from his Milan-San Remo debut as a neo-pro for Rabobank in 2011. On the age of 20, Matthews used to be the youngest competitor available to make stronger Oscar Freire, a champion he’d seemed as much as for a very long time. A 3-time winner of “La Primavera”, the Spaniard used to be an unconventional champion, every so often disorganised and every so often marching to his personal beat, which contributed to creating the enjoy particularly memorable for Matthews.
“I remember we were doing the team meeting the night before and we said ‘Where is Oscar?’ Nobody had seen him all day. Then he was really late for the meeting and we said ‘Where have you been?’
“He said, ‘Oh, I went for a walk into Milan; I was taking photos,’” Matthews recollects. It flew within the face of professional biking lore: why sightsee, let on my own stand, when you’ll be able to sit down or lie down, particularly forward of a 300-kilometre Vintage?
“So this was my first experience of Milan-San Remo. Oscar was a crazy guy, so talented, but really just enjoying life. I think he crashed in that race and broke his shoe, so he had to get a spare one from the car. Then I was pacing him back, but unfortunately, we never really made it back to the front.
Matthews first podium in the race came in 2015 (Image credit: Getty Images/Tim de Waele)
Never mind finishing 107th, the seeds for a career-long love affair were sown for Matthews. “It was a really special experience that I’ll never forget,” he says.
Within a few years, Matthews was contending for the race himself. His first top-10 finish came back in 2015, placing third, a few metres behind winner John Degenkolb and Alexander Kristoff. Off the back of two Paris-Nice stage wins that spring, Matthews was confident it was going to be his year.
“I messed up the sprint. I got myself into a position where I got blocked and couldn’t do my proper sprint. If you see the replay, from where I came from to where I got to, I was super fast,” he reflects.
“I think that one also haunts me until now, basically knowing I was so strong and got blocked at a bad moment and didn’t hit out when I should have. But you learn from that, hopefully you don’t make the same mistake again.”
He also finished third in 2020, best of the small sprinting pack as Wout van Aert pipped Julian Alaphilippe 25 metres up the road after their breakaway over the Poggio. So near, yet so far again.
The make-up of San Remo
The Milan-San Remo route changes very little in the modern era. The riders know the principal tests that face them and are up at the crack of dawn to carbo-load ahead of a 288-kilometre race, with over 2,300 metres of climbing on offer.
A slow edition can mean over seven and a half hours in the saddle for the bunch. It’s a tricky one to prepare for. “I try not to overthink it. It’s probably the race I’ve done the most in my career,” Matthews said. “I think you just need to switch off your brain as much as possible until it needs to turn on and really focus for the final.”
Along speaking to peloton friends early on, Matthews specializes in consuming and consuming, getting hundreds extra energy on board: “There’s no real secret to it. Either you like it or you don’t, you can handle it or you can’t.
“Every time I do the race, I think back to the years before where I’ve been through every sort of weather in Milan-San Remo – snow, crazy rain, beautiful weather, pretty ok weather. I think of all those different things that have happened over the last years, sort of gather up all that information that I’ve learned from the race and try and do better every year.”
Haring south through the Po Valley, the percorso drags up Fausto Coppi’s hometown of Novi Ligure around the 90km mark before ascending its high point, the Passo del Turchino, just before the halfway mark.
After hitting the azure, alluring Ligurian coastline 10 kilometres later, it’s flats-ville until the capi, the punchy climbs on the SS1 road, which hugs the Ligurian Sea. Capo Mele, reached with 60km to go, signals the start of a hill-stuffed endgame, quickly followed by the Capo Cervo and Capo Berta.
The peloton tackles the Cipressa all the way through the 2024 version of Los angeles Primavera (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
In recent years, small groups have contested victory in San Remo, a far cry from the 40-strong pelotons we saw ten years ago. Matthews reckons a contributing factor is the capi being ridden more intensely than in the past, leading to riders being dropped there. “Every year, it just seems to be getting quicker and quicker,” the 34-year-old says.
“I don’t think it’s down to a certain person, just the way the race is evolving, where climbers are starting to feel they can get involved. When you see guys like Nibali winning the race [in 2018], I think every other punchy climber is thinking, ‘Maybe I can win.’”
Positioning at the front becomes more and more crucial for the race’s final two hills, the Cipressa and Poggio. If a wannabe winner is not in the top twenty-five positions, especially as the pace cranks up before the final climb, it is difficult to win. Any acceleration burns precious energy right before it is needed most.
Faster, still furious: how the finale’s dynamic evolved
The characteristics of Milan-San Remo’s final hour usually depends on the tactic of pre-race favourites and their teams’ manpower. Sometimes, all you need is one superstar who has the power and the well-timed solo attack (Mathieu van der Poel, 2023) or a few on-song all-rounders to make good an escape over the Poggio (Kwiatkowski, Sagan and Alaphilippe’s blanket finish in 2017 comes to mind). On other occasions, teams with hardy sprinters call the shots, possessing the numbers and desire to keep things together – such as the 2016 edition, won by Arnaud Démare won, when Katusha, Tinkoff-Saxo and Etixx-QuickStep chased and pushed for a bunch kick.
In the current era, the knowledge of needing to make the race hard for pure sprinters leads to a faster Milan-San Remo finale than ever. “I think the amount of different riders targeting the race now just makes it faster and faster. When you get to those two final climbs now, the last few years, you see UAE wanting to make it as hard as they can to drop as many people as they can to make it more suited to Tadej [Pogačar]. I’m sure that’s not going to change in the next few years.”
Fail to adapt, prepare to fail. That way of racing plays into Matthews’ hands, too. “If Philipsen wasn’t there last year – okay, maybe Mathieu would be racing for himself, it might have been a little different,” he says.
Matthews’ pal Tadej is similarly as prepared so as to add the Monument to his palmarès (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
“But Philipsen is probably the fastest guy in the world at the moment and it’s difficult to beat him if he’s gotten over the climbs with a guy like Mathieu to help him. So the perfect situation for me would be as fast as possible to get rid of as many people as we can and have a more reduced sprint.”
In modern life, there can be an onus on changing things for change’s sake, sometimes catering to society’s perceived reduced attention span. Milan-San Remo might be a long, slow-burner, but its conclusion is a time-honoured treasure which is perfect as it is. The bunch goes full throttle up and down the Poggio, seeing puncheurs, climbers, Grand Tour contenders, time-triallists and sprinters going toe-to-toe.
With attacks firing away and nail-biting pursuits of escapees, it is an adrenaline flood for rider and viewer alike, 15 minutes of guaranteed unmissable sport.
Then, after a whirlwind of a day, Matthews ends up in Monaco, wondering what on earth just happened.
“Last year, my wife and daughter were at the finish line. We jumped in our little Audi A1 and drove home,” he says. “We got some delivery sushi, had that for dinner and went to bed. It was crazy: from a tyre away from winning a Monument and the dream of my life to back to reality, sort of thing.
“It was definitely a rollercoaster of emotions from crossing that finish line, even until now. I never sort of can let it go, let’s say,” he says of his 2nd position. “That night, my wife and I were happy [with my personal effort, beating so many talented riders], but being so close, obviously it’s very difficult.”
So, made wiser by years of experience and motivated even more by his near misses, is 2025 the year that Michael Matthews finally wins Milan-San Remo?
“It’s one of those races where I saw my Australian teammates win, with Matt Goss and also Simon Gerrans. So, it obviously does suit Australian riders. I’m just hoping and dreaming to be the next one to do it,” he says.
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