Decorated Australian cyclist Michael Matthews concedes he is lucky to be alive after undergoing treatment for a pulmonary embolism over the European summer.
The 34-year-old was forced to withdraw from the Tour de France after experiencing breathing difficulty at a training camp in the lead-up to the race he was favoured to win stages at.
Matthews, who has been selected to represent Australia at the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda next month, initially put his symptoms down to allergies but scans later showed blood clots through his lungs that if left untreated could have proved life-threatening.
“My training and everything is so severe that those clots obviously left somewhere else and got to my lungs, and the lungs are the last step before it gets to your brain and kills you. I think it was quite lucky,” Matthews says from his home in Monaco.
The Jayco Alula rouleur, who is originally from Canberra, spent a couple of nights alone in a Switzerland hospital unsure if would be able to leave as blood tests and scans confirmed the diagnosis. A pulmonary embolism occurs when blood clots in the lungs block blood flow and restrict oxygen to the rest of the body.
Matthews recalls experiencing symptoms including shortness of breath, chest pain and heartbeat irregularities at the June training camp in Livigno, Italy, which worsened as his sessions intensified.
“We were there for in total three weeks, like normal, and about halfway in I started to feel like I just couldn’t breathe,” he recalls.
“I felt like I was trying to breathe underwater. I was trying to still do all my training, but I was thinking it was allergies that were holding me back.
“Towards the end of the camp, when I had to do my really, really hard efforts, I just couldn’t get through the session. I got through one of the efforts and thought I was going to die,” Matthews continues.
“Lucky my coach was there, and he told me to stop, let’s just rest and see if you can recover for tomorrow. That afternoon we went for a walk in the town just to clear my head a little bit and my heart rate was actually higher walking in the town than what it was on the bike.
“So, we jumped in the car and drove to Swiss and got some blood checks, and then they sent me straight for a CT scan and saw the scan of my lungs was full of blood clots.
“So yeah, it was pretty scary. And then a couple of nights in a Swiss hospital by myself because everyone else was gone - that was also pretty scary, not knowing exactly what was going to happen to me, if I was going to be able to leave the hospital or if I was going to stay there, or die. I didn’t know.”
.jpg)
Michael Matthews, pictured with national teammates in the mixed team relay at the 2024 UCI Road World Championships, has extra motivation for the 2025 titles in Rwanda. Photo: Getty
Matthews was prescribed anti-coagulation, or blood-thinning, medication to treat the clots and had two weeks off the bike as he talked daily with medical experts. The medication worked quickly, and he started to ride for up to an hour each day, keen to exercise but also cautious of the increased dangers of crashing while being treated.
“The team was really trying to hold me back as much as they could but they also said we don’t really want you to train because if you do crash on the blood-thinners you can get bleeding on the brain and die, so it’s really sort of up to you if you want to take risk going out training, which is obviously a little bit scary when you’re going out training on the road where something can be out of your hands,” Matthews says.
The former green jersey champion was aggrieved to miss the Tour de France in July, but the prospect of representing Australia for the 14th consecutive time at the UCI Road World Championships has served as motivation to return to competition as fast as possible.
Matthews, who won Eschborn-Frankfurt in May, returned to the peloton for the first time since his diagnosis last weekend, placing eighth at the Bretagne Classic-Quest-France in Plouay. He’s set to compete in the US at the Maryland Classic this weekend before defending Australia’s title in the mixed team relay at the World Championships and lining up in the elite men’s road race.
Michael Matthews celebrates at Eschborn-Frankfurt. Photo: Sprint Cycling
“Obviously for me the World Championships is always one of my biggest motivations of the year – putting on the green and gold jersey and representing Australia at the World Championships is always a beautiful way to end the season,” Matthews says.
“I think through my situation, what I’ve been going through, it’s been something that I’ve always been thinking about in the back of my mind, when I go out training, when I get up in the morning whether I should go and ride my bike or not, or continue pushing to do all these tests to get myself back healthy faster than probably normal. So yeah, it was an extra motivation, which always boosts me to rise to another level for the World Championships.
“I love World Championships, I love being around all the Aussies and obviously representing Australia. But now with the whole season changing, with no Tour de France, with no Tour de Suisse, without all these races, it was definitely something that I could really pin my mind to and focus on.”
Matthews doesn’t know what caused the blood clots but has taken assurance from the fact scans now show his lungs have cleared. And he’s advising anyone who experiences chest pain to be seen by a medical professional.
“It’s been a long process, but everything seems to be on track, which is nice,” he says.
“After a couple of weeks of taking the anti-coagulants, the clots were going away quite quickly. It seems like cured from all the checks we’ve done. Originally when we first found out about the embolism, we checked my whole body, so we checked if it was coming from anywhere else, and it was nowhere else in my body, which is a good thing obviously.
“We checked all through the three months of taking these blood-thinners now and it was just in my lungs, so it’s gone now completely from my lungs. My heart is like a 20-year-old, one of the doctors said last week when we went to check.
“I think it’s a good lesson to me and to everyone, actually. If you are feeling a sharp pain in your chest don’t just think it’s allergies, or bad sleep, or fatigue. You definitely should go and get it checked.”
Main Image: Michael Matthews in the green and gold at the World Championships. Photo: SWpix.com