How do you beat Peter Sagan to the Tour de France green jersey? That’s the million dollar question, according to Michael Matthews, who will aim to do just that later this year.
The Australian, who moved to Sunweb after four years at Orica Scott, is embarking on a new phase in his career, and although his race programme has yet to be confirmed, there’s little to suggest that the sprinter will miss cycling’s marquee event come July.
At his first training camp with Team Sunweb in December, Matthews sat down with Cyclingnews on a wintery, overcast afternoon to talk about his 2016 season, how his transfer to Subweb unfolded and his thoughts on the Tour de France.
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Sagan’s vice-like grip on Green stretches all the way back to 2012, when the then Cannondale rider started his incredible run of five consecutive jerseys. Since then he has won seven stages and demoted the sprint classification to nothing more than a procession. The World Champion can consistently place in the bunch sprints, infiltrate mountain breaks and even ride away from the entire peloton in the closing moments of stages, as he demonstrated so effectively in 2016. The traditional bunch sprinters, up until now, simply haven’t stood a chance.
When asked if Sagan is beatable, Matthews is honest in his summary: “In the last few years no, but hopefully in 2017 he is. For cycling and the Tour de France it would be good to make it more of a battle for the Green jersey. At the moment it’s not even a battle, it’s the Sagan jersey.
The question remains: how do you deal with Sagan?
Sprint improvements
Leaving Orica
Gerrans and I were like Hamilton and Rosberg
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