{"id":831842,"date":"2026-07-29T18:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T18:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831842\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T18:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T18:58:12","slug":"nasty-keirin-crash-rules-former-aussie-matt-richardson-out-of-commonwealth-games-track-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/831842\/","title":{"rendered":"Nasty Keirin crash rules former Aussie Matt Richardson out of Commonwealth Games track cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most hotly anticipated showdowns of the 2026 Commonwealth Games has been unceremoniously called off with the news England’s Matt Richardson will not ride in the track cycling.<\/p>\n

The sprint champion who represented Australia before defecting to the country of his birth following the Paris Olympics in 2024 has been ruled out by injury, Team England announced.<\/p>\n

Richardson was racing in Japan and had been set to arrive in Scotland just before the track cycling program in Glasgow gets underway on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Live: Commonwealth Games day six<\/a><\/p>\n

We are past the halfway mark in Glasgow, which means the end of the swimming program as athletics kicks into high gear. Follow live.<\/p>\n

He sustained an undisclosed injury after taking a nasty fall while riding in the Keirin World Series in Tachigawa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“We wish him a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him back on the track soon,” the English team said.<\/p>\n

Richardson was set to compete in the men’s individual and team sprints in Glasgow, setting up a high-profile showdown with his former Australian teammates.<\/p>\n

“It’s definitely weird seeing him in GB kit,” Australian sprinter Leigh Hoffman said before the withdrawal was announced.<\/p>\n

“At the time it just came out of nowhere, we’d just finished the [Olympic] Games, brought a few medals back for Australia and then he went on holiday and never came back.<\/p>\n

“I’m not really going to be sad about it or anything, I’m just going to focus on riding my bike and I think he does the same as well.”<\/p>\n

The Aussies generally played down the match-up earlier at the Games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Matt Richardson (left) and\u00a0Leigh Hoffman have competed before, but on friendlier terms. (Supplied:\u00a0AusCycling\/Mackenzie Sweetnam)<\/p>\n

“I’m excited to beat everyone in the world, he’s just another domino to fall, hopefully,” said Hoffman, who won 2022 Commonwealth Games gold and 2024 Olympic bronze in the team sprint<\/a> with Richardson.<\/p>\n

“The Australia-England rivalry goes back very far with the Ashes and all our other sports. It’s always Australia vs England, [but] for the Commonwealth Games, we’ve got some really stacked riders.<\/p>\n

“Azizul Awang from Malaysia, who’s come in in great form; Trinidad and Tobago, Nicholas Paul \u2014 there’s a lot of great riders.<\/p>\n

“But the fans are definitely looking forward to an Australia-England match-up.”<\/p>\n

Hoffman admitted to being hurt by Richardson’s defection after years riding together.<\/p>\n

“We’d never experienced something like that,” Hoffman said.<\/p>\n

“You grow up racing with someone and you think you’re both Aussies and then he’s not. That’s life.”<\/p>\n

On the way out the door, Richardson fired shots at the AusCycling set-up \u2014 comparing riding in Australia vs England to attending a normal high school vs Hogwarts \u2014 a quote Hoffman chuckled about “biting [Richards] in the arse”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the most hotly anticipated showdowns of the 2026 Commonwealth Games has been unceremoniously called off with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,16742,784,141694,41565,157165,85,96099,35073],"class_list":["post-831842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-commonwealth-games","tag-cycling","tag-leigh-hoffman","tag-matthew-richardson","tag-richo","tag-sports","tag-sprint","tag-track-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831842","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=831842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}