It was an emotional third victory for Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla) at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, with the Australian dedicating the win to his grandmother, who passed away in the week before the race.
A beaming Matthews held up three fingers over the finish line after securing another victory in Québec with a brutal, grinding sprint launched at the 300 metres to go mark, but was in a reflective frame of mind as he pointed to the sky on the podium.
"This one is for my Grandma who passed away last Wednesday. I watched her funeral online here in Quebec two days ago so to turn that around to victory today, it's quite emotional honestly," said Matthews during his winner's press conference.
"If I couldn't win today, then what was the point in being so far away from my family during this difficult time, why am I doing this? So this was extra motivation for today and I just can't believe I could actually pull this off after such a hard moment in my family's life."
For Matthews it was also only his second win of the season, putting a run of near-misses and poor post-spring form to bed with a stunning victory ahead of the best competition, including three-time Tour de France stage winner Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE team Emirates). It's fair to say Matthews was delighted to be back on the top step again.
"I think first of all, winning here today was ultra special basically since Flanders till now, nothing's really gone according to plan. I had a really good Classics with second by a tyre in San Remo, a podium in Flanders before my relegation and since then, through Swiss ad TDF and Olympics, nothing went to plan unfortunately," said Matthews of his struggles in 2024.
"I just knuckled down after the Olympics, I knew there were some good opportunities in Québec and Montreal to get back to those winning ways, it obviously just shows that all the work and dedication that I've put in from the Olympics to now has paid off."
While making the Australian Olympics squad for Paris 2024 was itself the realisation of a dream, it wasn't quite the fairytale debut, with Matthews managing only 15th and that forced him to rethink his training heading into the latter part of the season.
"I've missed the last few [Olympics] through non-selection so to go to Paris and have that opportunity to be a leader of Australian cycling was a dream of mine. But I was hoping for much more," said the 33-year-old.
"Since then I've basically been back to altitude, trained my arse off and just knuckled down. I just turned my training back to what I love to do which is ride my bike all day, hurt myself, and then actually come home and change to my mountain bike and go mountain biking all afternoon, not really stick to the script just rip it up and enjoy riding my bike again."
This more than paid off for Matthews, who perhaps even shocked himself when he was able to maintain his powerful, perfectly timed sprint all the way to the line in Québec and add another victory at the race where he also got to celebrate over the line in 2018 and 2019.
"I've won here twice before so I know how to do it, I know what it takes but I think this year with the lineup we had here and the race that panned out today, I was quite surprised to have the sprint that I had in the final there," he said.
But once he actually hit the front, launching past a faltering trio of Pogačar, De Lie and one of the Belgian champion's teammates, the confidence returned and he never felt like he was going to lose it.
"I guess in this sprint for some reason, it always happens to me in slow motion. I don't know why, I just love these uphill man-on-man sprints when it's who has the most power that can win and for me, I'm not the fastest guy in a typical bunch sprint but on a finish like this, I can battle with the best," said Matthews.
"I knew once I launched my sprint, it didn't matter who was coming next to me, they weren't coming past me. I had good confidence and I think I had a smile on my face for that final 300 metres. It was long but I knew it would have been difficult for someone to come round me."
