{"id":68938,"date":"2025-08-15T00:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T00:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/68938\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T00:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T00:33:11","slug":"australian-defector-matthew-richardson-becomes-fastest-cyclist-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/68938\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian \u2018defector\u2019 Matthew Richardson becomes fastest cyclist of all-time"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year and three days since he was a toast of Australian sport by winning his third medal of the Paris Olympic Games<\/a>, Matthew Richardson has now become the fastest cyclist<\/a> of all-time \u2014 while pedalling furiously in Great Britain colours.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old Richardson, who caused plenty of ill-feeling among the Australian cycling community<\/a> when he decided after the Games to switch his allegiance to his birth country, has flourished ever since his \u2018defection\u2019.<\/p>\n

But the English-born rider\u2019s biggest achievement yet in Team GB colours came at the Konya Velodrome in Turkey on Thursday when Richardson became the first man to smash the nine-second barrier over 200 metres on the track, clocking a landmark 8.941 seconds from a flying start.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today \"Download<\/a><\/p>\n

His time surpassed, by more than a tenth of a second, the previous record of 9.088sec, set by Richardson\u2019s great Dutch nemesis, Olympic champion Harrie Lavreysen, at the same Paris Games last year.<\/p>\n

Richardson sped round the track at the venue, which benefits from the altitude assistance of being located at 1200m, at an average speed of 80.5kph.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cool to be able to call myself the fastest cyclist of all-time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"MatthewMatthew Richardson has broken cycling\u2019s world record in the 200-metre sprint with a time of 8.941 seconds. Credit: Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t cool for the Australian cycling fans who still feel bitterness to Richardson.<\/p>\n

\u201cVomit every time I see him race (Australian POV),\u201d one Aussie said on social media after the record-breaking feat.<\/p>\n

Richardson learned all his cycling in Perth after moving from England as a youngster.<\/p>\n

Another fan remarked: \u201cBorn in the UK. Made in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richardson was a double Commonwealth champion before winning his two silvers and a bronze in the gold-and-green last August.<\/p>\n

He has since been banned for life by AusCycling<\/a> after he walked away from their program.<\/p>\n

In a special record-breaking day organised by British Cycling at the speedy Turkish velodrome, conditions were perfectly set-up for Richardson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was basically just a passenger. I gave the bike a bit of direction and it was just steering itself almost. I rode of lot of it outside the sprint lane, so I know there\u2019s a bit more there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And he believed his latest achievement was \u201cone of the biggest things I\u2019ve ever done\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople win Olympic medals all the time, people win world championships all the time, people don\u2019t break world records all the time, and people definitely don\u2019t ride sub-nine seconds all the time, because it\u2019s never happened before,\u201d he noted before the attempt.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t the only Briton to break a world record as Will Bjergfelt set a world record for the C5 UCI Hour Record, covering 51.471km in 60 minutes. He became the first para-cyclist to break the 50km barrier.<\/p>\n

– With 7NEWS.com.au<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2018Interesting\u2019 twist in Australian Olympic medallist\u2019s UK defection<\/p>\n

3 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Australia slaps Olympic medallist with lifetime ban<\/p>\n

2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year and three days since he was a toast of Australian sport by winning his third medal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,1625,3863,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-68938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-lifestyle","12":"tag-sponsored-content","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}