Veteran Australian all-rounder Michael Matthews has defended UAE Team Emirates-XRG's unrelenting pursuit of stage wins in the 2026 Tour de France, rather than just aiming for overall victory for Tadej Pogačar.
UAE surprised their rivals when they pushed hard behind a break not containing any GC contenders on stage 9, albeit not actually catching the move but keeping them on a very tight leash, and they then repeated the strategy to even more impressive effect on stage 10, reeling in the break midway through the day and setting up Pogačar for the win.
A breakaway specialist and fast finisher with multiple victories in all three Grand Tours in his broad-based palmares, Matthews is currently building back towards top condition after a spring severely affected by a bad training crash. In the crash, Matthews fractured bones in both wrists and then had to spend weeks away from competition.
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The 35-year-old returned to racing at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and then added the Tour de Suisse to his program, and is now aiming to add a fifth Tour de France stage win to those he already won in 2022, 2017 and 2016.
However, so far his best results have been a seventh place at Ussel, but as Matthews recognised to Cyclingnews before the start of stage 11, he still had "mixed feelings" about how he was going.
"From where I've come from to where I am now is obviously a blessing in disguise, but when you're here, you always want more," he explained.
"A lot of work went into getting back to the shape I'm in, so hopefully I'll get a chance for all that work that I've done to get to this point to pay off. It's been a rollercoaster so far, but there are still some stages to go."
Matthews is not one to beat around the bush when it comes to his condition, and he states categorically that so far, "There have been a lot of bad days, and only a few good ones.
"It's just not having that racing [pre-Tour]," he explains, "When you're pushing your body every day above the limit to what it's used to training at or racing at, then obviously the recovery is not so good, and you're just sort of bashing yourself down every single day.
"So there have been some good days, but unfortunately, probably more bad days than good so far."
The extreme heat, thankfully now no longer such a major factor at the Tour, but Matthews says that while nobody is immune to those challenges, when coupled with a drawn-out recovery period, it has "made it even harder for me individually." As a result, his current aim is to look toward the end of the second week and deep into the third to see what his best options for success could be.
"We've been trying every day," the Jayco-AlUla rider says, "but obviously when UAE are riding like they are, it' s difficult, and then the sprint stages are very controlled. There haven't been that many stages for me so far.
"It's the Tour de France, you don't get to choose which stages they plan for you, so you've got to just take what comes. A lot of the stages, unfortunately, that are going to suit me somewhat are going to be from the breakaway, and it's not always guaranteed that you make the breakaway. So you've just got to try and try again on every stage basically, and just see what comes up."
On paper, the second and third weeks of the Grand Tour tend to be where the breaks are most successful - the only one in the first was where Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) won, on stage 9. But Matthews says that although the battle for yellow is all but over, given Pogačar's domination, it makes no difference on hilly or mountain stages whether the breaks will succeed in going clear. Rather, it's the attitude of the leader's team that really influences the outcome.
"I don't think it really changes much. I mean, when UAE are riding like they are and they're in such amazing shape, they're always going to keep riding for the stage wins that do suit them, obviously.
"The sprinters will have their party on the next few days. But with how hard the race has been so far, I think the sprinters and the sprinter teams are going to be a little bit tired. So I would expect a bigger fight for the breakaway for these next few stages for sure."
However, Matthews remains adamant that despite the complaints occasionally emanating from some quarters about UAE's domination and pulling back the breaks, Pogačar's squad are perfectly within their rights to do that. Furthermore, he agrees, no squad blessed with that ability to take the stage wins would ever opt out of trying.
"No. 100%, I think any team in their situation would be doing the same thing. We're here to win bike races, we're paid to win bike races, and that's what our sponsors want, for us to win as much as possible.
"They don't necessarily care that the peloton or other people are unhappy that you're winning a lot," Matthews argued before asking rhetorically, "So if you've got the resources to do it, why not?"
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