“Probably my last opportunity to be world champion” - Michael Matthews pays emotional tribute to wife as comeback from pulmonary embolism and broken arm ends with Worlds silver

Michael Matthews stood on the World Championship podium in Montreal with silver around his neck and his wife watching nearby, barely able to believe where the previous 15 months had taken him.

Only last summer, a pulmonary embolism discovered during an altitude camp had brought his season to an immediate halt and left Matthews fearing far more than the end of his cycling career. He later revealed that doctors had warned him continuing to train could have proved fatal within days, while three months on blood-thinning medication kept him away from the Tour de France before his eventual return to racing late in the season.

By the beginning of 2026, Matthews had rebuilt himself again. He won the Gran Premio Castellon in January and appeared ready to return properly to the Classics, only for a training crash on March 5 to leave him with fractures to both arms, damage to his right thumb and further facial injuries. Two operations followed, along with weeks in which even moving his fingers and completing basic daily tasks became a challenge. His entire spring campaign disappeared with it.

Six months later, and one day after his 36th birthday, Matthews was outsprinting Mathieu van der Poel for World Championship silver.

“Not only the way I raced today. I mean, what I’ve been through the last two years, with emboli in my lungs and thinking my career was done, to breaking both my arms at the start of this year and thinking my career was done again,” Matthews told Cycling Pro Net after the finish. “Now bouncing back to being second in the World Championship road race, I’m just speechless, honestly.”

Montreal had hardly offered Matthews an easy route back to the podium. The Australian survived a race which had been exploding around him for almost 100 kilometres, repeatedly looking in danger of being distanced as Van der Poel, Tom Pidcock, Isaac del Toro, Remco Evenepoel and others attacked around the Mont-Royal circuit.

Yet every time the front of the race changed shape, Matthews was still somewhere nearby. He made his way into the decisive chase behind Brandon McNulty and, after the American finally secured the rainbow jersey, found enough in the sprint to beat Van der Poel to second place.

It was Matthews’ third elite road race medal, following silver in Richmond in 2015 and bronze in Wollongong seven years later. This one arrived more than a decade after the first, on a course many had considered too difficult for him and after two seasons in which simply continuing his career had twice been thrown into doubt.

“To be second around here, on a circuit that many said was out of my reach, and to show everyone that I’m still up there with the best in the world even after what I’ve been through, at the moment it feels like a win,” he said.

The result carried another complication too. Matthews had turned 36 on Saturday and knew opportunities like Montreal were no longer guaranteed to keep coming. “Yeah, I think this was probably my last opportunity to be world champion,” he admitted. “Obviously there are mixed feelings, but at the same time I have to be proud of the way I’ve bounced back.”

Matthews had spoken before the race with his wife about leaving Montreal without anything left in reserve. By the time he reached the finish, there was little question that he had done exactly that.

“I said to my wife at the start of today, ‘Let’s just leave it all out there and be proud of the ride at the end of the day. Make sure you finish with nothing left,’” he recalled. “And it’s exactly what happened today. When I crossed the finish line, I put my head in my hands, almost in disbelief at what had just happened.”

Her role in getting Matthews back to that point went much further than encouragement on race morning. The injuries suffered in March initially left him unable to use his fingers properly, with his recovery beginning through walking and gym work before he could eventually return to indoor training and then the road. Matthews has previously described the crash as another major setback after finally putting the previous year’s health scare behind him.

At home, his wife had been helping with things as simple as getting dressed. “I owe everything to my wife,” Matthews said. “She was so amazing through the whole period when I broke my arms. I couldn’t do anything. She was there every second of the day, helping me get dressed and keeping me motivated that big things were still coming in my career."

“She’s standing over there right now supporting me through all this," he added. "I can’t thank her enough for everything she’s done.”

When it was suggested that the silver medal belonged partly to her too, Matthews needed little convincing. “Yeah, she knows it. It’s as much her silver medal as it is mine.”

The missing 13 seconds to McNulty may sting more once the emotions of Montreal have settled. Matthews admitted as much himself, knowing that a third World Championship medal may also have been his final realistic opportunity to finally turn one silver and one bronze into rainbow gold.

Immediately afterwards, though, his mind was still on the considerably longer road which had brought him back there. “Obviously, in a couple of days when I settle down a little bit and think that I was so close to being world champion, maybe I might think a little bit differently,” he said. “But at the moment, with this feeling I have right now, honestly, it feels amazing.”

From a hospital bed with blood clots in his lungs, through two operations and a spring spent recovering from two broken arms, Matthews had made it back to a World Championship podium. This time, second place carried rather more with it than silver.