Michael Matthews "had tears in my eyes" racing at home, with a bronze medal as a reward for a strong race

Michael Matthews was a prime contender for the victory today in Wollongong, and he put out a strong performance that has earned him a medal at the end of the day as he sprinted to third place, for another very strong result to wrap off a successful end to the season.

“I think if you told me I was going to be third in the morning, I might have been a little bit disappointed, but now the way the race panned out I’m definitely happy," Matthews said after the finish. After Remco Evenepoel stormed away in the final laps, there was little that could be done in the peloton to catch back up, and the rest of the field was left fighting for the remaining medals. Taking that into consideration, Matthews' result was a positive one, which he could proud of.

"Standing on the podium in front of my home crowd here in Australia, it doesn’t get much bigger than that. Unfortunately, it wasn’t with the rainbow stripes around my chest, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying," he said. Matthews stayed in the peloton as the winning move went up the road at Mount Pleasant with 1:30 hours of racing left, and with the climb not being hard enough to decimate the field, he and other sprinters hung around, eventually having the chance to fight for a medal.

"My team were amazing today, I rode my race and we came away third. We had no idea [what medal we were sprinting for], especially with no radios it’s really hard to understand where everyone is," he explained. "Only in the last 500 metres we caught the final bunch that was just in front of us, so we were sprinting, but we actually had no idea which position it was for." Turns out in the end that was for second place, where he was narrowly beaten by Christophe Laporte.

Matthews also had special words to his fans, that came out in large number in Wollongong to support the home team, which the 31-year old enjoyed meaningfully: "I must admit after the first few laps I went to the front of the bunch and soaked up the crowd, but after that it was back into race mode again. In the last two laps the crowd was so loud, we were going so fast up the climbs and I couldn’t really feel my legs too much because of how loud the crowd was. It was super special out there, I had tears in my eyes," he said.

Additionally, the 400 points he has taken yet again today will further provide a safety net for Team BikeExchange - Jayco, who are likely to stay afloat with his recent performances and amount of points he's brought in.