Michael Matthews may be mostly known as a sprinter but the Australian is actually a great time triallist as well. Today he proved his skills by finishing 10th in the Tour de Pologne TT.
Multiple grand tour stage winner Michael Matthews has closed out the 2014 Tour of Poland with a top ten finish on the final time trial stage this afternoon.
Matthews finished 38seconds behind stage winner Kristof Vandewalle (TFR). Rafal Majka (TCS) won the overall Tour.
The result, together with two podiums earlier in the week, was a positive finish for Matthews who proves to be in solid form despite returning for a crash that kept him out of his first Tour de France.
“He is classy, it is not a surprise that Bling (Matthews) finished with a top ten performance today,” sport director David McPartland said.
“It’s good to finish the week on a bit of a high
“We knew he had been training well in Livigno but it’s been a long time, almost six weeks, without racing so to come back and deliver what he has is really promising for the rest of the season.
“He is already at a very high level.”
Despite not achieving back-to-back success, McPartland said there were positives to take out the week’s racing.
“We didn’t achieve all of the targets we set this week so that is disappointing,” McPartland said.
“But we spent a lot of time working together heading into the Vuelta which is the next race for many of these guys.
“It is always tough to come back as defending champions because you are the hunted.
“We didn’t put pressure on Pieter (Weening) but he wanted a good result himself so he is disappointed after yesterday.
“But, like I said, it was a good week to get some of the guys from the Vuelta together and we made a lot of progress in that regard.”
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