Michael Matthews has capped off an inspirational team performance to win stage three of the Vuelta a España and move into the red race leader’s jersey today.
Matthews’ ORICA-GreenEDGE team punished themselves on the front of the peloton for the entire stage to bring back an early breakaway and position the 23-year-old in the punchy, uphill final.
“I’m just so happy that I got to finish off for them,” Matthews said of his teammates.
“It makes the win so much sweeter to be able to win when your whole team has absolutely smashed themselves for you.
“We thought it was going to be a bit more of a reduced bunch at the finish. The heat was the main factor today and then the climb in the final was very hard but I had the team to put me in the perfect position and from there it was up to me to deliver for them.”
Sport director Neil Stephens echoed Matthews’ sentiments.
“This is one of the best collective wins this team has ever had and I have ever seen,” Stephens said after the race.
“A lot of the other teams said afterwards that we really did deserve the win today and I think that’s the biggest credit you can get as a team.”
“Once we started working for the stage, we had to bite off a fair bit.
“A lot of the other teams were disinterested or knew that we were one of the favourites for the stage and they passed the work onto us.
“About half way through we had spent so much energy to get that far we really just had to spend a little bit more and that was basically everyone we had.
“The three big guys, Mitch (Docker), Brett (Lancaster) and Sam (Bewley), I didn’t think they would get through to the finish at all but not only did they get there, they were riding on the front in an unbelievable manner the whole day.
“Big hats off to those guys and the others guys who put in their bit going up and down for water all day and working a bit later in the stage so Michael could take the victory.”
The victory was Matthews’ third Vuelta a España stage win, following victories on stage five and 21 in 2013, and second leader’s jersey for the season after he wore the Giro d’Italia maglia rosa for six days in May.
“It is definitely a dream come true,” Matthews said of 2014.
“I didn’t expect to have any Grand Tour leader’s jerseys this year and now I have two from both of the three-week races I’ve done. I still can’t believe it, I am definitely going to have to pinch myself tonight.”
Earlier in the stage, a breakaway of five riders – Danilo Wyss (BMC), Luis Mas Bonet (CJR), Jonathan Fumeaux (IAM), Jérôme Cousin (EUC) and Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (MTN) – established from the flag.
By 50km, the gap had rapidly reached eight minutes when ORICA-GreenEDGE put Bewley, Lancaster and Docker on the front of the peloton and began to rein them in.
With contributions on the final classified climb by Cameron Meyer and Ivan Santamorita, the race was back together with 25km to ride.
A solo attempt by Australian Adam Hansen (LTB) was unsuccessful with 13km to go, before the peloton wound up for the final kilometer climb to the finish.
Katusha’s Giampaolo Caruso was the first to fire but was caught with 200m to ride by Garmin-Sharp’s Dan Martin. Matthews was hot on his wheel and too fast in a final effort to the line.
The Vuelta a España continues with stage four tomorrow, a 164.7km journey from Mairena Del Alcor to Cordoba with a 3rd and 2nd category climb in the final 60km.
