Michael Matthews heads again to Milan-San Remo on Saturday, taking one other shot at a race the place victory has narrowly eluded him over time.
The Australian has racked up three podium placings in 11 appearances at La Classicissima, however none noticed him come nearer to the win than final season, the place he got here centimetres away from beating Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) to the road in San Remo.
This yr, Matthews stepped his preparation up one other notch forward of taking over his first large purpose of the season, he mentioned in a Jayco-AlUla press convention earlier this week.
“After final yr, dropping by a tyre width or one thing, it gave me additional motivation to place a bit extra time into the recon,” Matthews mentioned. “I made positive I do know each piece of the highway.
“I kind of did earlier than, however to not the quantity of element that I do now. I believe that [over the] winter, I did [the final] between 20 or 30 instances.”
After main into the race with per week at Paris-Nice supporting his teammates, Matthews will depend on a squad together with Mauro Schmid, Filippo Zana, and Jasha Sütterlin on the 289km run from Pavia to San Remo this weekend.
There’ll be a six-hour lead-up to the hectic remaining, the place ought to he hit the closing Via Roma among the many leaders, he’ll be hoping to keep away from a mishap just like the sun shades distraction which can simply have misplaced him final yr’s version.
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“Sprinting to the road, I actually thought I used to be going to win. I believe it was at 25 metres to go, I used to be nonetheless in entrance, and when my glasses fell, I had that lapse of focus for a second,” Matthews mentioned of final yr’s dash end.
“That’s when Philipsen was in a position to move me. So, it has been, actually, very tough to swallow that consequence.”
“I’ve needed to work rather a lot to get again to try to struggle for it once more this yr. It hasn’t been a simple course of. I do not suppose it is ever occurred in biking – that somebody misplaced a Monument as a result of their glasses fell off. Let’s not repeat that.”
This yr, these hoping for a dash end, resembling Matthews and Philipsen, will as soon as once more must cope with Tadej Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad. The Slovenian, third final outing, will as soon as once more push a tough tempo up the Poggio, or maybe even earlier up the Cipressa, within the hope of detaching the quicker finishers.
“Every race that Tadej goes to he is usually the most important favorite, however that is most likely one of many hardest races for him to win,” Matthew mentioned of his rival, the betting favorite for the win on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s not as selective early on as he would love personally. It’s as much as his workforce to make it as exhausting as attainable for the remainder of us to get to the end.
“I believe they only must go as exhausting as attainable as early as attainable and simply hold going. They confirmed in Strade Bianche for the final two years they will make it exhausting early and get a small bunch. That would not actually go well with the San Remo course, however they do not have a lot different alternative.”
Whatever the consequence, and nevertheless the ultimate finally ends up being raced, this yr’s San Remo will probably be a distinct race to his early participations, together with his 2011 debut, the place he rode in service of reigning champion Oscar Freire at Rabobank.
“It’s modified massively,” Matthews mentioned. “When I used to be first driving it, it was often called the dash race. Basically, all of the sprinters would recover from the climb and it might be an enormous bunch kick.
“And then clearly extra climbers noticed that making it exhausting was attainable. But it may well change, relying on the traits of the favorite to win the race and if they’ve the strongest workforce to make the race the way in which they need it.”