Michael Matthews will lead Jayco-AlUla into the Ardennes Classics at Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race because the Australian appears to be like so as to add to his spectacular historical past of outcomes on the Dutch race.
The Australian is a perennial contender all through the spring and has 5 high ten outcomes to his identify at Amstel Gold Race, together with a third-place end again in 2015.
Earlier this spring he sprinted to a detailed second at Milan-San Remo, a career-best outcome, and again in January he gained the Ruta de la Ceramica in Valencia, Spain.
Following a nine-day racing break after Flanders, Matthews received again within the saddle at Brabantse Pijl and can now head up Jayco-AlUla for one more tilt at Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Joining him within the lineup for the primary of the Ardennes triple will probably be Luke Durbridge, Lawson Craddock, Anders Foldager, Jan Maas, Felix Engelhardt, and Mauro Schmid.
“Michael Matthews will probably be our chief,” stated staff directeur sportif Pieter Weening, who raced Amstel Gold Race 10 instances throughout his profession.
“He’s in actually fine condition and he completed off his cobbled classics marketing campaign in actually fine condition and with the staff we will absolutely deal with him.
“We additionally know that it’s at all times a tough race and it is at all times about positioning so moving into the proper place earlier than essential factors is an important activity for the opposite riders and getting Matthews into the proper place. That’s the one objective the opposite riders have, positioning him and preserving him out of bother.
Lawson Craddock stated that he and the staff expect an extended ‘closing’, with the motion starting from additional out from the end, in step with many different one-day races of recent instances.
“We’ve seen a giant shift in how these races are raced within the final couple of years they usually’ve positively received way more aggressive with the ultimate beginning a lot additional out,” he stated.
“I feel we will anticipate a variety of the identical for Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. The course is difficult all day, and it positively forces everybody to be on the entrance foot all day if they need any probability of success and that will probably be goal primary for us.
“We’re entering into with Michael Matthews and he is been on a tear these days with a number of the massive outcomes that he is received. There’s a variety of confidence in him understanding that he can ship experience for us. I feel we’ll simply purpose to be proactive all day and make it our experience as an alternative of making an attempt to race another person’s race.”