{"id":50572,"date":"2025-08-29T08:57:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2024\/?p=50572"},"modified":"2025-08-29T08:57:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:57:30","slug":"michael-matthews-returns-to-racing-at-bretagne-classic-ouest-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/michael-matthews-returns-to-racing-at-bretagne-classic-ouest-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Matthews returns to racing at Bretagne Classic &#8211; Ouest-France"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Australian <strong>Michael Matthews<\/strong> will make his return to racing alongside a stacked <strong>Team Jayco AlUla<\/strong> squad at the <strong>Bretagne Classic &#8211; Ouest-France<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 34-year-old was ruled out of the Tour de France after discovering signs of a pulmonary embolism back in June, but the former Plouay winner will make his comeback to action this weekend in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team head into the tough one-day race armed with options and talent, including double Swiss champion <strong>Mauro Schmid<\/strong> and Italian champion <strong>Filippo Conca<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fast finishing German <strong>Felix Engelhardt<\/strong> adds more strength, while three more Italians make up the seven-rider line-up with the punchy <strong>Davide De Pretto<\/strong>, experienced <strong>Alessandro De Marchi<\/strong> and the attacking <strong>Filippo Zana<\/strong> all in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Team Jayco AlUla:<\/u><\/strong><br>Filippo Conca (ITA)<br>Alessandro De Marchi (ITA)<br>Davide De Pretto (ITA<br>Felix Engelhardt (GER)<br>Michael Matthews (AUS)<br>Mauro Schmid (SUI)<br>Filippo Zana (ITA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Michael Matthews<\/u><\/strong>:<br><em>\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to pinning a number on again and getting out there with my teammates. These last few months have been tough, but I\u2019m ready and excited to get back racing again.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>It is also special to be returning to a race that I have good memories of after my win back in 2020. I\u2019ve also had some other good results here in my career and it\u2019s a race that suits me well.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>We have a strong team with a few options that we can play, so I\u2019m excited to be back and to finish the season on a high with these next few races.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Pieter Weening (Sport Director):<\/u><\/strong><br><em>\u201cWe have a nice team Plouay and it\u2019s good to have Michael back after his injury. We will see how far he can get into the final, but I&#8217;m quite confident Michael is going to be good, he&#8217;s a real professional athlete. On the other hand, it&#8217;s his first race back and it&#8217;s a long race, 260km with almost a little more than 4800 altitude metres, so it&#8217;s also going to be a hard race for him.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Then for the others we have Mauro there who can go after a result, and also Felix and Zana, this is also a race that suits these guys. In the end we will try to be there with as many as guys as possible in the final and we just want to race.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In the end it&#8217;s going to be an honest race, it&#8217;s a real hard race so if you want to end up in the final and you want to make a result that means first of all you need to have the legs. It\u2019s a pure honest race.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Bretagne Classic &#8211; Ouest-France \u2013 Race Details:<\/u><\/strong><br>Sun, 31st Aug, Plouay \u2013 Plouay (261.7km)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Photo: Sprint Cycling<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australian Michael Matthews will make his return to racing alongside a stacked Team Jayco AlUla squad at the Bretagne Classic &#8211; Ouest-France. The 34-year-old was ruled out of the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296,386],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50576,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50572\/revisions\/50576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}