Racing careers are finite, and all professional riders must face the question of what comes next.
2016 Paris-Roubaix winner Mathew Hayman faced that question at the beginning of 2019 when he finished his career at that year’s Tour Down Under.
Hayman was one of GreenEDGE Cycling’s defining riders in the team’s earlier years, and since his retirement five years ago, he’s become a highly respected sport director for Team Jayco AlUla. However, the transition took time to adjust to after spending 20 seasons as a professional rider.
“It was confronting for a little while to go and sit on the other table at dinner and sit with the staff and then you eventually get into that role,” Hayman says. “As part of my transition away, and the struggle I had with deciding to retire, I felt like it was a good way to go into the next thing and gain some skills, use my knowledge, give back to the team and the riders that I had raced with, and hopefully continue to contribute to the team and their performances.”
Sport directing was not high on Hayman’s list of post-career plans to begin with and there was a time when he would have dismissed the suggestion of becoming a sport director.
As his racing career came to a close, he still wanted to work with GreenEDGE Cycling – where he’d been riding since 2014 – but he initially had different plans for his post-racing career.
“There were years when I said that I would never do it, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I think I was still in denial [about retirement],” says Hayman. “The role was originally around working with the sponsors, doing some days at races, and learning the ropes across a range of areas but it quickly turned into a sport director role.”
Swapping the saddle for the car seat was an eye-opening experience for Hayman. Out in the peloton, he didn’t have the chance to appreciate what went on in the car behind or how much work went into making a race run smoothly.
Over the past five years, Hayman has been developing his own style as a sport director and how best to use his knowledge to help the riders.
“Ultimately, you want to encourage the riders to act on their own instincts and it’s not a dictatorship where I say what happens,” he says. “You try to encourage them to understand the tactic and then they go out and make the adjustments themselves. I’m trying to work on that.
“There was a lot of homework that needed to be done, logistics and planning, that I wasn’t aware of as a rider,” Hayman adds. “I thought [sport directors] knew a lot more about what was going on in a race. I was a road captain during my last few years as a rider and I had a pretty good grasp of things. I felt I was in control of everything. Then you realise when you’re sitting in the car as a sport director and you have a bit of a crackly radio, the communication isn’t always great, that you’ve got to try and figure out in your head what you think is happening.”
Returning to Australia
Another major post-retirement change for Hayman was his decision to return to home to Australia with his family.
He’d spent much of his career living in Belgium, spoke fluent Flemish, and had created a life there. However, the Coronavirus pandemic that swept the world just a year after he stopped racing proved to be a catalyst to return Down Under.
Now, Hayman splits his time between Europe and Australia, flying his racing blocks before returning home to spend quality time with his family.
“COVID was a time to reflect,” he explains. “I have children that are growing up and my eldest has started high school this year. We were acutely aware that our families are getting older, and lockdown and not being able to return gave us time to think about what we wanted, and what we wanted for our children. So, we moved back.”
With such differing time zones, it can be a tricky balance at times, but it also has its benefits for Hayman.
“We have this term in Australia, FIFO – fly in fly out – though I’m not going into the mines of central Australia but to Europe,” he says. “In some ways, it’s given me the ability to really focus when I am here. The family is on a different time zone, I’m not trying to juggle both.
“When I’m in Europe, I tend to do big days and then I try to be more present when I’m at home. During the day when the kids are at school, I’m able to do stuff uninterrupted. You do feel like you’re living a double life at times, but it is also good to be able to switch on and off.”
The Tour de France
Later this week, Hayman will be in action from the sport directors’ car at the forthcoming Tour de France. Having ridden the French grand tour four times in his career, Hayman has first-hand experience of what a race as big as this means. He has felt the highs and lows it delivers.
As a child growing up watching VHS recordings of Tour de France stages and reading the latest editions of Cycling Weekly that he could get his hands on from the UK, Hayman long dreamed of being able to compete in it but it took a while to reach that goal.
“When I turned pro, I thought it was going to be in the next couple of years, that it was on my horizon, but it never really fit in,” says Hayman. “It was one of the reasons I moved to GreenEDGE. They gave me that first start in the Tour in 2014, and I’d already been pro 13 years. It ended after 10 stages. It was probably one of the lowest points in my career to get off at the Tour.
“Then I did it in 2016 and it was clean sailing. It was emotional to finish the last mountain stage and go into Paris and ride around the Champs Élysées. I told [team owner] Gerry Ryan, I’d been to the Champs Élysées as a spectator to watch it when I was a U23. I was racing in Belgium, and I’d broken my collarbone, so I went down to Paris and watched the race and thought I’d be there in a couple of years. It was almost 15 years later that I got to finish the Tour. It seems silly, but it was a big turning point in my career to be able to say I’d done that.”
Going to the Tour de France is still a big moment as a sport director and Hayman is keen to use his experience to guide the 2024 eight-rider squad to stage success as well as a strong GC result.
“There’s an awareness that it’s the biggest race on the calendar, there’s more media attention, and that you need to do the best possible job for the riders to get the best results,” he says. “Hopefully one or more of them is able to achieve something that they’ve dreamed of, reach their full potential, and show the world how good they are.
“We’re taking a very professional, experienced, and talented team to the Tour. It’s nice knowing that we’re in with a chance almost daily to either win a stage or perform on GC. There’s no real rest at the Tour, it’s going to be a whirlwind, but I’ve got a lot of support on the directors’ side and a great group of staff. I’m really keen to bring that GreenEDGE culture to another race.”
Top photo: KRAMON
