Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla) has criticised fellow professional Nathan Van Hooydonck (Jumbo-Visma) over the incident that saw the pair come shoulder-to-shoulder at Paris-Nice.
Although Van Hooydonck had already addressed the matter on social media and provided a defence, Matthews is still aggrieved and “still waiting” for an apology.
The incident occurred on the approach to the intermediate sprint on Monday’s stage 2 of Paris-Nice, where the pair challenged Tadej Pogačar for the bonus seconds. Van Hooydonck appeared to jerk suddenly to his right, bumping into Matthews, who was kicked out to the right but avoided crashing.
Van Hooydonck responded that evening, stating he was himself pushed by another rider to his right and suggesting that critics such as Belgian commentator José de Cauwer “need glasses”.
Matthews returned to the matter after Tuesday’s team time trial in an interview with Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad (opens in new tab).
“This is not what we want to show on television, to young children and people in general who watch cycling. It certainly wasn’t okay, I hope he knows what he did wrong and won’t do it again,” Matthews said.
“Fortunately I can handle my bike quite well, but if it was in the middle of the peloton, you would have seen a domino effect. I think he said something on the internet, like he apologised, but I’m still waiting for that. I would appreciate that.”
Matthews also felt Van Hooydonck should have been punished for his actions. Riders are increasingly sanctioned for pushing others in the age of video refereeing, but the jury at Paris-Nice presumably agreed with Van Hooydonck’s case that he was himself bumped out by what appeared to be a Groupama-FDJ rider on his left.
“If you can get away with excuses every time, then this will happen. We have to show each other respect as riders,” Matthews said.
“Light contact is always possible, but this was really unnecessary. I flew, unexpectedly, to the other side of the road.”
Matthews and Van Hooydonck both ended up going close to the yellow jersey in the stage 3 team time trial after strong performances from both their squads and strong final sprints from the riders themselves.
Van Hooydonck sits second overall, one second behind EF-EasyPost’s Magnus Cort, while Matthew is third at three seconds, although Wednesday’s stage 4 marks the first uphill finish of the race.
