Michael ‘Bling’ Matthews won Stage 3 of the Vuelta a Espana. John Degenkolb would not have liked that. Degenkolb won Stage 4. Bling won’t exactly love that either. There’s a good reason for this.
Le Tour de L’Avenir is the under-23 race put on by the organiser of the Tour de France, the Amaury Sport Organisation.
It’s historically recognised as a draft camp of sorts for developing professional cyclists. Its name translates to ‘tour of the future’.
The event is designed to test pro contract candidates out in Tour de France-style conditions and in its history it has heralded the arrival of some of the sport’s biggest names.
Stage 2 of the 2010 edition is now particularly relevant. The 144 kilometres from Vierzon to Saint-Amand-Montrond finished in a bunch sprint. The winner was a burly young German by the name of John Degenkolb. Hot on his heels was a young Aussie upstart: Michael Matthews.
There’s no motivation quite as rousing as seeing one’s long-time rival succeed.
The following year I happened to introduce myself to Degenkolb while he was out training in Flanders for the classics. For a while I helped him search for sections of cobbles he could practice on. We chatted about junior races we’d both done and were getting along.
I mentioned at one point I knew Matthews. He couldn’t help but give me a very slight glare. “Yeah I know him,” he said. I changed the subject.
A few months earlier, just after that 2010 L’Avenir, the two had raced again, this time on Matthews’ home turf, the U23 world championship road race in Geelong.
Bling took out the rainbow jersey in a hard, uphill sprint. Degenkolb was second. The two were the cream of the amateur crop that year.
The next year as neo-pros, it was on German turf in the Rund Um Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt where Degenkolb went one-up, taking victory with Matthews third.
Just over 12 months later Degenkolb broke through and claimed a swag of four stages at La Vuelta. Of course, at the following edition, Matthews claimed a gallant two stages at the same age.
This year Bling had a stellar Giro in Degenkolb’s absence, which Degenkolb answered with two second-places in a Tour de France sans-Bling.
That brings us to this week and back to la Vuelta where they have met once again.
When Matthews took out a stage victory and the leader’s jersey (I told you so) we should have guessed that Degenkolb would respond with his own stage win just 24 hours later.
Degenkolb versus Matthews is one of those good old-fashioned rivalries. I doubt either of them would admit it. They’ve never clashed off the bike. As far as I know they get along. But deep down on the inside, they wouldn’t be able to ignore this history.
In any case the mutual respect seems to have spurred them both on throughout their careers. It makes good watching.
La Vuelta itself has proven to be a ‘tour of the future’. It was there in 2011 that we saw Chris Froome and Marcel Kittel declare themselves world class. Within a year or two of those Vuelta results they were both claiming Tour de France victories.
If the Matthews-Degenkolb tit-for-tat continues in Spain – and dare I say it, on to the world championsips afterward – grab your popcorn folks, there’s no saying where it could end.
It’s worth noting too who ended up winning the general classification in that 2010 L’Avenir: Nairo Quintana, by a 47-second margin to Andrew Talansky. Both are now both poised as contenders for this Vuelta.
Sounds ominous to me.
This year’s Tour de L’Avenir is currently underway. Aussie talent Campbell Flakemore took out the prologue in impressive style and our scary-fast young sprinter Caleb Ewan has chalked himself up a stage already.
I figure we can pencil Ewan and Flakemore in for la Vuelta 2016.
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