How Australian cycling star Michael Matthews overcame the crossroads

"Maybe this is God saying just hang it up," Canberra star Matthews wondered, before recounting the story to British cycling magazine Rouleur.

It would have been a heartbreaking end to an elite Australian cycling career, a retirement unfit for a star of the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana.

"It was so many setbacks, and I was just like, 'Phwoar, maybe it's my time, you know'. I went through stages of those thoughts and had to talk to a lot of different people about whether I wanted to still do it or not," Matthews said.

Little more than a month ago, Matthews left Belgium in a wheelchair after suffering a series of injuries in one of three crashes he was involved in at the Tour of Flanders.

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"I couldn't actually walk. I was trying to get to the airport to fly out and had to be in the wheelchair," Matthews said.

"Through the night, the night of the crash, I went to go to the bathroom and couldn't manage to get from my bed to the bathroom. I passed out from the pain trying to get to the bathroom."

"I wanted to see what I could do [at Flanders], and ended up being in three massive crashes. The third one really took me out, with a two-and-a-half-centimetre tear in my quad, and a one-centimetre tear down the side of my knee, sprained ankle and also more skin off my body, which was also not healed from the weekend before."

Matthews would soon overcome the succession of setbacks, executing what he dubbed a perfect ride with his Australian Jayco AlUla team to end a drought that extended back to last year's Tour de France, timing his sprint finish immaculately to hold off Denmark's Mads Pedersen.

The victory earlier this month was Matthews' 40th as a professional and his third in Italy's Grand Tour following successes in 2014 and 2015, but his first since a stage win in the Tour de France last July.

So how did 32-year-old Matthews find a way to win stage three of the Giro d'Italia after his career was at a crossroads?

"After two weeks off the bike, I really realised actually there's only one thing I want to do in my life and that's ride my bike," Matthews said.

"I was watching all the races on TV and looking outside at people riding their bikes and how happy it made them, so when I saw all of that and thought about not being able to do that anymore I definitely changed my mind back to, 'I can get back to the level I was at', and, 'I can continue winning'.

"I need to be the best and I think that's something that I've had in me since I was a kid. I'm not going to say I'm going to go and win 10 stages now after I've won one. We're just going to continue trying that's for sure."

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