He wants to beat Pogacar and van der Poel at Milano-Sanremo: "I still dream about that every night when I go to bed"
Cycling
Michael Matthews is one of the riders with the most longitude in the peloton at this point, having over a decade of racing at the highest level. With this came a green jersey at the Tour de France; stage wins in all Grand Tours... But there is still one race he dreams about winning everyday and he is not afraid to take on Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel.
"As an under-23 rider, I was used to throwing myself into the race and I really enjoyed that. When I got into the WorldTour, I had to adapt to the way of racing," Matthews said in an interview with Sigma Sports. "And I never really liked that, waiting and then sprinting at the end". But Matthews, a sprinter/puncheur mix, is eager to take on a different attitude when it comes to racing, similar to that of riders such as Mads Pedersen and Wout van Aert who can rely on their sprint but are very aggressive.
"I actually like aggressive racing, but after all those years I had kind of gotten used to that one way of racing. Now the racing is different again and hopefully I can adapt to that and race aggressively again," he says. "That's the way I would like to do it, but at the crucial moments I automatically became a bit more conservative. That's how I won a lot of my races, so logically you gamble on that".
As a strong sprinter, Matthews can take that risk, but in recent years the peloton's sprinters have become more and more complete riders such as him. This decade, Matthews only took 6 wins, out of his total of 42. Perhaps to improve this number more quickly, the Team Jayco AlUla rider has to change his way of racing.
"... I want to go back to my roots: riding aggressively and going earlier. I have more options than waiting and then sprinting, which is also boring. Hopefully I can do it differently again this year," he anticipates. Matthews will race Paris-Nice; Milano-Sanremo; three Belgian cobbled classics; Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège later this spring.
But Sanremo, a city only a dozen few kilometers away from his home in Monaco, is the one he aims for the most. "I'm still chasing the races in which I've already come second and third. Milan-Sanremo, of course. I still dream about that every night when I go to bed". The 34-year old has finished on the podium three times, and on the Top10 another three times. Last year, he was incredibly close to winning, but was beaten by a Jasper Philipsen at the finish line.
But then, he also finished on the podium of the Tour of Flanders (until he was relegated). "And the Tour of Flanders has also become a kind of new passion. In the first half of my career I didn't think about it, but in part two I fell in love with that race. It's a super cool race and after last year I feel the fire to return," he concluded.
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Rúben SilvaEditor-in-Chief
A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
Beyond editorial work, he has been closely involved in the expansion and coordination of CyclingUpToDate’s wider network, helping establish and support sister platforms across multiple languages. This includes ongoing collaboration with CiclismoAlDia (Spanish), CiclismoAtual (Portuguese), WielrennenUpToDate (Dutch), and RadsportAktuell (German), contributing to a shared editorial vision and consistent international coverage.
He also helps oversee editorial governance across the network, setting standards for accuracy and consistency and coordinating updates or corrections when needed.
Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
Within 18 months of launch, he helped grow CyclingUpToDate’s English-language platform into one of the most-read cycling news websites, built entirely from the ground up. As both a professional journalist and lifelong cycling enthusiast, his focus remains on delivering accurate, timely, and well-contextualized coverage.
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- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
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