Former gymnast Matt Richardson tells Senior Correspondent Mike Osborne how his explosive strength and speed will help him slay the giants and win three Olympic cycling medals.
Despite being English-born and introduced to track cycling by British legend Chris Hoy, Matt Richardson is plotting to smash the Brits and the Dutch as well at the Paris Olympics.
The dual Commonwealth champion is on target to collect three medals in the team and individual sprints plus the keirin on what he describes as the world’s fastest sea-level track that’s “like NASCAR on bikes”.
The nuggety 25-year-old has shot up the world rankings since he was a rookie at the Tokyo Games, finishing fourth in the team sprint, 12th in the keirin and a distant 17th in the individual sprint – after being a last-minute call-up.
“I was the starter in the team sprint back then and I was a bit underprepared for the individual events,” the West Australian cyclist admits.
“But post Tokyo I moved from the starter to position two in the team sprint and that allowed me to train differently and get a bigger engine and get a lot stronger for the individual sprint and the keirin.
“And then things just happened very quickly. I went to the Glasgow World Cup in 2022 and medalled in every event. We won the team sprint, I was second in sprint and third in keirin.
”We won the sprint at the next event and we were getting great momentum heading into the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games and that’s where it just went bang.”
Richardson won the individual sprint in Birmingham and the Australian team including Matt Glaetzer and Leigh Hoffman won the team sprint.
They followed up by winning the 2022 team sprint world championship, while Richardson took silver in the individual sprint behind Dutch world champion Harrie Lavreysen.
“I’ve been trying to maintain the momentum ever since,” Richardson said. “I couldn’t topple Harrie at the world champs in the individual but we won the team sprint.”
Holland’s individual sprint champion Lavreysen along with their kilo world record holder Jeffrey Hoogland and starter Roy van den Berg won the team sprint world title back from Australia in 2023.
“We beat them in 2022 by 0.04 of a second and they beat us in 2023 by 0.03 of a second, so I guess it’s us and the Dutch who are favourites for Paris,” Richardson said. “The Dutch are an absolute powerhouse as a team and individually. They have three guys who are the best in the world.”
Richardson is wary of the ever-dangerous Brits and a Japanese team which has shown good recent form, but he wants to smash them too.
“You can never count out the Brits,” he said. “They always show up to the Olympics with more kit, more money and more technology than anyone else and they get some extra speed off that.”
Richardson, who stands 1.72m in his socks, has a love-hate relationship with British cycling. His idol since he was eight has been Sir Christoper Hoy, Britain’s 11-time world champion and six-time Olympic champion. It’s been an enduring bro-mance which started at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“It’s probably not the most common thing to have a role model from another country but he was the first guy I remember riding a track bike,” Richardson said.
“We were on holiday in France when I was eight years old and it was the (2008) Beijing Olympics and my dad loved cycling so he turned on the track events and said ‘this is Chris Hoy’.
“We watched the keirin final together and he won it. I remember it like it was yesterday. That moment has never left my head. And now I’m going to my second Olympics and I might be riding the keirin final and there might be an eight-year-old kid watching me who might be inspired.”
But back in 2008, Richardson was training to be a gymnast, a sport he started aged four.
“I was taking it very seriously even after we’d moved from Kent (in the UK) to West Australia when I was nine,” he said.
“About five years later I went to watch a local bike race in Perth with my dad and there was a lady from the Midlands Cycling club scouting for more members to ride at their club session on Wednesday nights.
“It was my only night off from gymnastics, so being the young 14-year-old sports nut that I was, I thought ‘Yup let’s fill up my one night off a week with more activity’ and that’s how I started cycling.
“Six months later I went to the doctor with an overuse elbow injury from gymnastics. It was a Friday afternoon and he told me I needed to take 18 months off gymnastics to fully recover. I made the decision over the weekend. By Monday I was fully committed to track cycling.
“It was a quick shift, but ripping off the band-aid and just getting into it was a good way to go. After 11 years of gymnastics, I was pretty keen to try something new.”
Richardson’s decade-long gymnastic training has gifted him explosive power and strength which makes him different to most riders who come to the sport through road cycling.
“I remember the first time I ever rode on the track and it was mind blowing,” he said. “I thought ‘how do people ride around those massive banked corners’, and then you do it yourself and it was such a thrill. Then you get faster and faster over time and it’s just exhilarating. It’s like NASCAR on bikes.”
“Obviously we come off absolutely exhausted because our legs are our engines. Somehow I have explosive power, but then enough grit and determination to push through pain and ride my bike for longer.”
Richardson was already racing at state level aged 15 and competed at national championships in between school and study. He quickly proved he was fast enough and committed enough to be selected for the world junior championships.
“That makes or breaks a lot of people,” he said. “Some come back thinking ‘wow the step to elite level is so big – they are so much better than me and how can I make that jump?’. But I was more hungry than ever. From then I was basically in the main squad working towards qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics.”
The team sprint is Richardson’s highest priority heading into Paris with only the top eight nations qualifying for the Games. And he has a lot of faith in his teammates Glaetzer, competing at his fourth Olympics, and Hoffman, along with training partner Tom Cornish who missed selection for Paris.
“We are all about the same age and have come through the ranks together,” he said. “We are genuinely good friends and having that sort of a relationship with your teammates is important. You want the best for yourself and your mates.
“It’s about how all three of us can ride the fastest three laps possible. We’ve put our own individual aspirations on the bench and just cracked on with the team sprint.
“It’s a far smarter move to prioritise the team sprint if you are among the top eight because the chance of winning a medal is far higher. There’s not really any tactics in the team sprint. It’s just us and the clock.
“After that I’ll worry about the individual sprint and then the keirin. I tend to do better in the sprint because it is more controllable and I can show my tactical knowledge and use my strengths to my advantage.”
Waiting for Richardson in the Paris individual sprint will be his Dutch nemesis Lavreysen:
“Harrie is a 13-time world champion with at least five of those in the individual sprint. He’s the Olympic champ. He’s the main man. If you beat Harrie you can win the whole thing.”
Then he will move onto the keirin but Richardson knows that it’s not always the fastest rider who wins that event.
“You can get stuck or boxed in and yes it’s your fault if you let that happen, but you just can’t control the entire race,” he said. “While I’ve been super lucky in some keirins, I’ve had others where I’ve had a really good ride and it hasn’t paid off because the luck hasn’t gone my way.”
Richardson is also looking forward to the coliseum atmosphere of the Paris velodrome which he describes as “the fastest sea-level track in the world”. “It’s super wide, super steep and super round and it’s fantastic to ride.”
After slaying the giants in Paris, Richardson will train-on to the Los Angeles 2028 Games and hopefully Brisbane 2032.
“The Paris and LA Games are the ones where I’ll try to win as many medals as possible,” he said. “But Brisbane is my bucket-list finish: A home Olympics in front of a home crowd.
“To finish with a home Olympics would be a fairytale and it is too good of an opportunity not to try. As long as I can keep my body in good shape I’m confident that I’ll maintain enough form to keep my spot.”
After Brisbane Richardson wants to coach or mentor young riders, just like his hero Chris Hoy did for him once.
“I had a special moment when I first met Chris Hoy in 2022. It was surreal and came a long time after I watched that 2008 Beijing keirin,” he said.
“We were in an uber together on the way to the airport and got stuck in three hours of traffic so I just started picking his brain. For him it was probably just a normal chat with another cyclist but for me it was like ‘this is Chris Hoy my idol, this is crazy’. I just learned so much from him. He will always be an inspiration to me.
“I also feel that I’ve learned too much about the sport to just leave. I want to give back in some way and share my experience and knowledge. I’d love to coach the next generation of high level athletes.”
Michael Osborne has been a journalist for more than four decades including 35 years with the national news agency Australian Associated Press, rising from junior reporter to Editor.
He was AAP Editor for 11 years and served four years as Head of Sport and Racing. He was also posted to London and Beijing as AAP’s Bureau Chief and Foreign Correspondent.
He has worked at six Olympics and five Commonwealth Games, covered tennis grand slams, golf majors, international cricket, rugby world cups and numerous sporting world championships. He also co-ordinated and managed AAP’s teams and coverage at three Olympic Games in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
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