Michael Matthews

Michael Matthews got his start in the Australian Institute of Sport and, after winning the under-23 World Championship road race in 2010, signed with the Rabobank Team, making his entry into the sport's top tier in 2011. In his early pro years, Matthews was regarded as a sprinter. He won a stage of the Tour Down Under in his first outing with Rabobank, beating some of the most established sprinters of the era in Stirling. A stage win in the Vuelta Murcia and a victory in the Rund um Köln followed in his neo-pro year. More success in the Clasica de Almeria and Tour of Utah followed but after not being selected for Rabobank's Tour de France team, Matthews left the team for the Australian Orica-GreenEdge outfit for 2013, as he aimed to take on Peter Sagan, the dominant sprinter of the era.

Matthews didn't race the Tour in his first year with Orica, instead he raced the Vuelta a España, winning two stages.

In 2014, he raced the Giro d'Italia and after his team won the opening team time trial, Matthews moved into the maglia rosa of race leader, held it for six stages, and won a stage while wearing the pink leader's jersey before abandoning on stage 11.

He was due to make his Tour de France debut, but a training crash in the lead-up saw his team replace him due to his injuries. He went onto the Vuelta, winning a stage and leading the race for three days.

In 2015, Matthews won a stage of Paris-Nice, landed on the podium at Milan-San Remo, won the opening stage of the Tour of the Basque Country and led it for two days before dropping out. He then turned his attention to the Classics, where he finished on two podiums - second at De Brabantse Pijl and third at the Amstel Gold Race. He started the Giro, again taking the pink jersey after Orica won the TTT on stage 1, winning another stage while wearing the maglia rosa before he dropped out on stage 14. His Tour de France debut did not go to plan, as he crashed on stage 3 and spent the entire race nursing fractured ribs.

He finished the Tour, and headed to Canada to prepare for the World Championships in Richmond, winning a stage of the Tour of Alberta and taking second at the GP de Québec. At the World Championships, Peter Sagan broke away on the final lap and Matthews won the sprint for second.

Matthews won his first Tour de France stage the next year, and traded teams for 2017, joining Sunweb, where he would spend the next four seasons. His first Tour de France for Sunweb went exceedingly well, he won two tough stages and the points classification but crashed out of the Tour the next year. In 2019, he missed out on any Grand Tour stages and came away with three victories. Sunweb left him off their Tour de France team in 2020, leading Matthews to change teams, heading back to the Australian outfit then known as Team BikeExchange, and remained with the team with a contract through 2025 and the aim to have more freedom to race aggressively, putting aside the idea notions of racing as a pure sprinter. He won a stage of the 2022 Tour de France from a large breakaway on the tough uphill finish at the aeroport in Mende, proving himself as a puncheur, and followed that up with a stage of the Giro in 2023.

Matthews began the 2024 season with a victory in the Ruta de la Cerámica - Gran Premio Castellón and finished second in Milan-San Remo in a sprint behind Jasper Philipsen. He sprinted to third in the Tour of Flanders - but what would have been a career highlight was erased when officials deemed he had deviated from his line in the sprint and he was relegated to 11th. The decision knocked the wind out of his sails and he didn't score another major result until he won the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec for the second time. He was part of Australia's winning team in the UCI Road World Championships mixed relay TTT.

Key Results

4x Tour de France stage wins, (2022, 2017, 2016)

Tour de France points classification (2017)
3x Vuelta a España stages (2014, 2013)
3x Giro d'Italia stages (2023, 2015, 2014)

Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal (2018)

Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec (2018, 2024)

Bretagne Classic-Ouest-France (2020)

3x stages Paris-Nice (2016, 2015)

3x stages Itzulia Basque Country (2017, 2015, 2014)

3x stages Volta a Catalunya (2022, 2019)