Michael Matthews

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Nationality: Australian

Date of birth: September 26, 1990

Team: Team Sunweb

Twitter: @blingmatthews

Michael Matthew's career to date

A solid sprinter and puncheur, Michael Matthews is one of the most successful Australian riders in the pro peloton today. Having won stages in all three Grand Tours, Matthews isn't afraid of trying new races and has won a Grand Tour stage every year since 2013.

Known as 'bling' in the peloton for his love of shiny earrings, Matthews has won several points jerseys throughout his career including back to back green jerseys in Paris-Nice (2015, 2016).

With strong team behind him at the 2017 Tour de France, Michael Matthews was hoping to build on Team Sunweb's success at the Giro d'Italia with Tom Dumoulin's victory.

Early dominance by Marcel Kittel saw the German take five stages in the first half of the race as he all but secured the green jersey. However, Matthews, determined to fight to the end and continued to take intermediate sprint points as his German rival would focus solely on stage wins but as the race started to grow Kittel started to struggle.

Punchy stages coupled with high mountain top finishes saw Kittel drop backwards and Matthews started to prosper. Stage 14 saw Matthews take his second ever Tour de France stage on a punchy finish. Then a few mountain stages were the final blow as Kittel succumbed to illness, while Matthews started to prosper once more with another win on stage 16.

A crash on stage 17 saw Kittel leave and Matthews all but secure the Tour de France green jersey, being the first Australian to do so since Robbie McEwan. Sure enough, he maintained his lead, rolling into Paris the leader of the points competition for 2017.

Matthews pulled out of the following years tour due to illness, thus unable to defend his green jersey. However, his season was brightened by a stage win at the Binck Bank Tour and a second place in the GC. He also won the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec for the first time in his career.

His 2019 tour was hampered when it was revealed that Tom Dumoulin would not be riding. He spoke to CW, saying: "I’ve been making sure I can climb really well, making sure I can do a really good TTT to support him as best as possible. It’s definitely hard to take in the news.”

 

Michael Matthews puts career on pause after signs of a pulmonary embolism

Australian will miss Tour de France with all physical activity stopped until further notice

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