On his last visit to Rodez in the Tour de France, Michael Matthews discovered an uphill finish perfectly tailored to his characteristics, but found himself scarcely able to raise a gallop on the Côte de Saint Pierre. Hampered by four broken ribs he sustained in the opening week, the Australian struggled to 17th place, tortured as much by the missed opportunity as by the missing skin.
Two years on, Matthews returned to Rodez in rather more felicitous circumstances, in the whole of his health and shepherded by a determined Sunweb squad. He held his nerve when Philippe Gilbert (Quick-Step) accelerated from distance, and then bounded up the final ramp to the line to claim a fine sprint victory ahead of Greg Van Avermaet (BMC).
"In 2015, I wasn't really able to contest it with the four broken ribs and the skin off my body but it was nice to be able to do a recon for this year, I guess," Matthews said on Saturday afternoon. "I knew what I was in for. I'd done a lot of training for this sort of finish. I just needed to be able to position myself right and have a kick over top of the climb there and then I could enjoy the last 50 metres."
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Matthews' talents are so varied that he could realistically aspire to victory on anything up to half of the stages on this Tour, but as the race reached its third weekend, he was facing the very real prospect coming away with nothing. Marcel Kittel's dominance in the flat sprints – five wins and counting – made the stakes on Saturday's uphill finish in Rodez all the higher for Matthews, and his Sunweb team set out their intentions by chasing the early break. In a fraught finale, Matthews' every movement was closely policed.
"I think being a clear favourite makes it difficult because everyone's eyes are on you. It's not that they're going to try to follow you in the peloton, it's that they're going to try to get in front of you and make it harder for you to try to win," said Matthews, who took the second Tour stage win of his career.
"In the end, I had to fight a few guys to be in a good position on that final corner. It's lucky I had some legs left to zip back to the front, get into third wheel and do my sprint properly. Otherwise it would have been quite difficult from far back."
Sagan and Kittel
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