Australia's Michael Matthews was not selected for the Tokyo Olympics but just representing his country in Paris was not enough. The 33-year-old wanted to be fighting for the medal but narrowly missed the group that went on to fight for bronze. behind Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) and Valentin Madouas (France).
Matthews finished a disappointed 15th at the end of the 273-kilometre route in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
"It didn't go according to plan, let's say," Matthews told Cyclingnews.
"Obviously we wanted to be fighting for a medal today so I'm obviously disappointed."
The course, peppered with short, sharp climbs including the final cobbled Montmartre ascent with 9.4km to go, suited the three-time podium finisher in Milan-San Remo but the small teams for the Olympic Games was a detriment for Australia, who only had three riders compared with the four-man teams that all of the medal winners enjoyed.
"I think legs were good on the climb. I was probably one of the few that wasn't that far off the [Mathieu] Van der Poel/[Wout] Van Aert group, so obviously finishing where I finished is disappointing.
"I think when you have teams like Belgium with two clear leaders, they can run two game plans with Van Aert and Evenepoel. They can run Evenepoel with a long move and Van Aert for a reduced sprint. So I think that was key today but when you have options with four riders compared to three, it is more difficult to have that game plan."
Another major complaint from riders was the lack of race radios and problems with the timing board. Matthews added that the race numbers, which are sequential instead of being grouped in 10s by team like a normal UCI race, made it difficult to understand what was happening.
"People are not in their normal jerseys, and with the different numbers - looking at the board from the motorbike, you have no idea who's in front. So it's a bit chaos, but it's the same for everybody," he said.
Matthews isn't giving up on his Olympic dream. Even at 33 and as a debutant, he wants another shot in Los Angeles in 2028.
"We'll see. I'm 33 now so let's see hopefully one more, another shot but I will have to wait a couple of years now."
