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"I'm shocked that he's out there to be honest," Bates said of the 31-year-old Matthews\ufeff, who won the under-23 road race world title in 2010.<\/p>\n
"He's an exceptionally good rider, I don't disagree at all about his capability in this event.<\/p>\n
"It just surprises me given his focus for the road race and given that he generally likes to be very in control of his lead-in.<\/p>\n
READ MORE:<\/strong> Icon reveals cycling truth after darkest chapter<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Retiring Federer reveals unexpected future plans<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Hawthorn rocked by 'disturbing' allegations<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n "Riding an event like this doesn't necessarily give him that."<\/p>\n Bates, working as an expert analyst for Stan Sport, then offered an intriguing theory as to why Matthews may have been out on the road so close to a pinnacle event.\ufeff<\/p>\n "Something a little bit more sinister came to mind, actually," Bates said.<\/p>\n "At the moment, in the UCI World Tour, some of the teams are facing relegation out of the world tour because of a decision made three years ago to base it on points.<\/p>\n "Now his professional team, BikeExchange (Team BikeExchange-Jayco), are perilously close to the bottom of that table and there are UCI points on offer in this mixed teams time trial, which could massively swing the balance for them.<\/p>\n "Given that there's Luke Durbridge out there as well, it could score BikeExchange a huge number of points. In fact, more points than they earned altogether at the Tour de France, including his (Matthews') stage win on stage 14, because of how it settles down.<\/p>\n "I just wonder if there's any motivation about that. I'm sure they'd say there isn't… but it seems like there's a slightly bigger agenda at play."<\/p>\n Stan Sport cycling host Michael Tomalaris was sold.\ufeff<\/p>\n "It makes sense to me," Tomalaris said.<\/p>\n Mathieu van der Poel of the Netherlands was the other men's road race big gun participating in the mixed team relay.<\/p>\n For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
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