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Michael Matthews is enjoying his first day in the green jersey but he is riding a standard bike without any green accoutrements out of respect for the former point classification leader.

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“I went to bed last night wearing my podium jersey and cuddling the little green martian from the podium and sent the picture to the WhatsApp group in the team and said, ‘Please let this be real – and that I wake up in this jersey.’”

Michael Matthews is thrilled to be leading the points classification. His ambition at the Tour in 2017 and was to wear the green jersey and he’s doing that in stage 18. It is real. But there’s no extra green ‘bling’ on the bike out Team Sunweb outfit, not today.

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Matthews poses for photos with fans before his first day in the Tour de France’s green jersey.

Photo: Rob Arnold

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The option exists for the team to put Matthews on a green Giant bike but he’s refraining from doing so in stage 18.

“It was more out of respect for [Marcel] Kittel,” he told RIDE at the start in Briançon earlier today. “We have everything in green, it’s ready… But through Kittel’s misfortune yesterday, I think it shows how much respect we have for him to not go full green today.

“We’ll see, maybe tomorrow I might pull out the green [bike] but for today we’ll keep it low key.

“This whole team has massive respect for Kittel so we just want to show that.”

Kittel suffered a nasty crash in stage 18 and although he attempted to continue, he eventually conceded and quit the Tour while wearing the green jersey.

 

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The race number is updated after stage 16… and it now includes “3V”, denoting the three stage victories Michael Matthews has earned at the Tour in the past two years.

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The former leader of the points classification had a commanding lead only a few days ago but Matthews went on the attack in the mountains and nabbed intermediate sprint points, as well as winning stage 14 and 16. By the time that Kittel abandoned, there was just nine points between the two riders.

Matthews has calculated his chances of retaining the green jersey all the way to Paris. To be frank, he essentially has to just stay on his bike to the end of stage 21 and he’ll earn some more podium time – and become the third Australian to win the points classification.

“From what we calculated, Greipel has to win every intermediate [sprint] and tomorrow’s stage and Paris to be equal with me. So I think it’s done but we still have to get to Paris.”

 

 

– By Rob Arnold

 

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