Matthew Richardson, who won Commonwealth gold for Australia in London’s Olympic velodrome, has declared how he’s now dreaming of lifting his first major cycling crown in British colours on the same track.
The sprinter, who caused such a furore by switching allegiance to his UK homeland after the Olympics in Paris where he won three medals for Australia, is preparing for an emotional weekend as a GB ‘home’ rider at the two-day final of the UCI Champions League event in front of family and friends.
Richardson said on Wednesday that after the initial outpouring of negative headlines about his ‘defection’ to Team GB, he now felt half the messages were supportive of his move.
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And locked in a Champions League battle royal with Olympic champion Harrie Lavreysen, the flying Dutchman who pipped him to gold in the Paris Games going into this weekend’s finale, Richardson explained his excitement at returning to the Lee Valley velodrome with a new national team allegiance.
Asked if he felt it would be a very different feeling to winning the Commonwealth sprint gold there two years ago should he prevail in the Champions League sprint series for a second time on Sunday’s second day of competition, the 25-year-old said: “Yeah, that’s the feeling I’m chasing, for sure.
“I’ve always thought, ‘What if I won the Commies when I was English?’ ‘What if I’d won the Champions League that first year when I was British?’ Like, how crazy of a feeling, how special a moment would that have been?
“So, that’s the feeling I’m chasing. I’m just five points behind (Lavreysen in the Champions League sprint standings), and it’s all to play for.
“I’m kind of preparing like I would for any other race, but it would be incredible to win, like all the moments I’ve thought about in the past.”
Dual citizen Richardson honed his cycling career in Perth after moving with his family from the English town of Maidstone when he was nine. Lee Valley is about 60km from his birthplace, leaving Richardson to consider it almost his “home track”.
“I don’t think it’s going to feel that strange,” he shrugged, asked how different it might feel from his Commonwealth heroics in 2022 when he struck double gold in the sprint and team sprint for Australian cycling which, enraged by his switch, has now handed him a life ban.
“I think the cheers are just going to be louder every time I race in that London velodrome. I’ve got grandparents, cousins and uncles and just family, friends coming to watch, quite a lot of support, but I always do have that when I go race in London.
“So, the contrast to the Commies will pretty much feel the same from a level of family support, but the cheers will hopefully be a little bit louder.”
Asked about how he had been coping with the negative publicity and social media backlash he’d received ever since his post-Paris move was announced, he shrugged: “I mean, I’m pretty used to it now.
“I think it’s interesting, a lot of the comments now have people kind of in defence of me. I felt at the beginning, when I first made the swap, it was just a lot of negativity, whereas now it’s a real 50-50 split of people saying something stupid and then someone kind of backing it up with either facts or just defence.
“But I’d say it was just almost like rinse and repeat from from the first time I dealt with it. Even though it’s kind of got brought up again, it’s just the same noise as the first time.”