"I'll be there for Paul in the high mountains" - Matthew Riccitello assures his role will come in Tour's third week
Cycling
Matthew Riccitello completes his collection of Grand Tour participations this July with Tour de France as last to be added to his resumé. And the American is definitely enjoying the experience, even though consequences of a crash on third stage have been limiting his performance in the first week.
"I haven't felt quite like myself since the fall on the third stage, but I'm feeling better and better, and yesterday I started to have some positive feelings, so hopefully it just continues this way," Riccitello told Cyclingnews after tenth stage to Le Lioran where his leader Paul Seixas took a third place.
That is very important looking ahead to the mountain stages still to come. In particular the final block will be brutal and his young French leader will need every ounce of quality from his teammates to secure a spot on Champs-Élysées podium.
And for Riccitello, the positive feelings are important too. After all, the fifth rider from last year's Vuelta a Espana did not come to France just to tick off the Tour. "I knew I was feeling good coming into the race and that form doesn't just disappear, so, I think for sure that I had a little bit of percentage taken off. It should be all good and I'll be able to be there for Paul in the high mountains."
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Meanwhile, the sprint stages of last two days have been an opportunity to recover even further for the 24-year-old, because his responsibilities in such stages are minimal.
"There's not much I can do in the leadout for Olav," he says with a slight grin given his out-and-out climber's physique, "it's not in my characteristics, so for sure I can just look forward to the coming days."
Olav Kooij won Decathlon's first stage at the 2026 Tour de France
As for the Tour, his tasks are centered solely around Paul Seixas. But Riccitello's season does not end here. In just three weeks after the Tour finishes, the American returns to Vuelta, aiming to - at the very least - repeat his 2025 success.
"The Tour was always for Paul, to be there in the high mountains for Paul," he explains. "So right now, it's full focus on the Tour, but the plan is to go to the Vuelta and ride for GC there. But yeah, let's get this out of the way first."
"Just as I imagined it"
There's a total of four Grande Boucle debutants in Decathlon's Tour lineup. Besides their two climbing aces, sprinter Olav Kooij and his leadout Daan Hoole have been thrown in the deep end as well. But despite the team's lack of experience and the weight of expectations, they've barely made any mistakes thus far.
"It's lived up to the hype. I mean, everyone before the race talked about how big it is compared to other races and it's lived up to that, but it's been a super cool experience," Riccitello highlights that the team copes well with the pressure.
"It's the first Tour for Olav and for Daan [Hoole], too, so it's something new for all of us, we're all kind of going through the same experience together. It's super special, something to try to enjoy as much as we can."
Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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- 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
- So all those who went to watch, including all from abroad, waled there, spent nothing? Most places hosting events of the sort manage to make it worthwhile. If it was so obviously fruitless, don’t you think by now they’d have run out of hosting candidates? Why do you think the Tour can command such high prices for departure and arrival locations? If it didn’t bring anything locally they’d have to pay to get authorisation to use cities.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- What a travesty ! That little deviation did nothing to impede Brand !frieders307-11-2026
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