'Bling' wings to first cycling win of year in Germany

West Australian

01-05-2025

Michael Matthews, Australian cycling's perennial winner, has opened his WorldTour account for yet another year, sprinting to victory in the Eschborn-Frankfurt one-day race.
Now 34 but still shining, the man known to his friends and rivals as 'Bling' ended his impressive Spring campaign of one-day races in Europe by demonstrating his enduring quality with a 43rd career victory in the race known as 'the German Classic'.
He's the first Aussie to win the race for 40 years since Phil Anderson sealed back-to-back victories in 1984 and 1985, and it maintained the Canberra star's brilliant record of having won at least one race in each of his last 16 seasons of professional racing except for the COVID-hit 2021 campaign.
"I think my shape through the spring was good, I just wasn't on the top step," beamed Matthews, who had finished fourth in Milan-Sanremo and fifth in Amstel Gold.
He'd twice previously finished on the podium in the German race, including a third-place finish on his debut appearance in 2011, while his runner's up spot a decade later was his best result in that difficult 2021 campaign.
"It's nice to finish off this block with a win here in Frankfurt. It's a race that has really suited me for a lot of years and I haven't been able to win it, so to come here with the team and the way we rode – we rode perfectly – and to execute a performance like we did today it was the icing on top of the cake."
Matthews is in his fifth season with his Australian-based Jayco AlUla team, and once again his teammates did the heavy lifting for him on the 198.7km route, particularly on the second big climb when their efforts did much to split up the race and leave a reduced field of 24 for the sprint denouement.
"I didn't expect my team to go so hard on the second long climb, but we split the bunch a lot and got rid of a lot of the fast guys, which was the goal," said Matthews.
"The team's performance was exceptional and to finish it off the way I did, I'm so thankful to my teammates."
Matthews comfortably outpaced Denmark's runner-up Magnus Cort Nielsen (Uno-X Mobility) and third-placed Spaniard Jon Barrenetxea (Movistar) for his first individual win since taking the Quebec Grand Prix last September.
Meanwhile, in the week's big European stage race in Switzerland, the Tour de Romandie, Astana's Italian rider Lorenzo Fortunato took the 157km second stage around la Grande Beroche.
Australian Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) was handily placed in seventh overall, 53 seconds behind the French leader Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost) and just one second behind double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel, who's lying sixth for Soudal Quick-Step.