Australian Michael Matthews (right) talked about his good friend Tade Pogačar with a lump in his throat. Photo: Profimedia
The star’s touching confession about Tadej Pogačar: Top champion, even greater friend
The ace cyclist with a lump in his throat about the fact that his good friend Tadej Pogačar stood by him in the most difficult moments and helped him.
For Michael Matthews it’s not exactly the easiest period. Only these days he returned to competitions after almost half a year of absence. In March, he had a serious accident during one of the training sessions, which could have ended his career.
On the Detour podcast, the popular Bling explained that the incident was much more serious than most people knew, and was caused by a fire truck driving on the wrong side of the road. “It was a lot worse than everyone thought,” said Matthews, who is currently competing in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, now known as the Criterium Dauphine.
Into a fire truck at 100 km/h
“It was also not disclosed that I crashed into the fire truck at almost 100km/h. I was driving about 50 km/h and the truck was also doing about 50 km/h. We didn’t want to make a big story out of it at the time. We didn’t want people to worry. First we wanted to make sure I was in good health before telling what exactly happened.’
The Australian added that the accident was not his fault. “I came around a bend on my side of the road, and as I recall, suddenly something red appeared in front of me. The next thing I remember, I was lying on the ground with both my arms broken and my face broken.”
Matthews was taken to the hospital, where investigations confirmed that he had suffered broken arms, broken wrists, a broken facial bone and torn tendons in his thumb. His spring season was over there and then, of course.
He wrote to my wife every day
During his recovery, Tadej Pogačar, a neighbor from Munich and his best friend in the caravan, was a great support. “Throughout the whole process, Tadej was absolutely amazing. I couldn’t write to him much myself, but he wrote to my wife practically every day. He asked how I was doing. He wanted her to send him videos of what was happening to me. And so practically every day. To have a friend like that… It helped a lot to keep me sane and gave me the motivation to fight and come back even stronger. To continue living my dream of being a professional cyclist. Having a friend like that during a difficult period helps a lot in recovery,” explained Matthews with tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat.
This shows what kind of character and person Tadej is
“I still thank him every day. He was in the middle of the peak of the spring season, preparing for Sanremo, but he still made time for me every time. In one of the interviews after Sanremo, he even said that he was thinking of me when he crashed and that he wanted to win for me afterwards, because he knows how close this race is to my heart. When you hear that from a man like Tadej, it brings tears to your eyes. The way he won was incredible. But not only Sanremo, it has an extraordinary spring. He won races that I myself dream of. We were in touch all the time and it seemed to me that the races didn’t mean as much to him as how I was doing. This shows what kind of character and person Tadej is,” Matthews could hardly hold back tears while telling the story.
“Mate” is what you would call it in Australia. A friend with a capital letter.
