{"id":428608,"date":"2026-01-23T19:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T19:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428608\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T19:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T19:00:10","slug":"politicians-cant-simply-rip-out-ltns-and-bike-lanes-they-dont-like-cycle-lane-plans-scrapped-at-last-minute-matthews-life-threatening-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428608\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cPoliticians can\u2019t simply \u2018rip out\u2019 LTNs and bike lanes they don\u2019t like\u201d; Cycle lane plans scrapped at last minute; Matthews life-threatening diagnosis + more on the live blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Matthews congratulates Mark Cavendish after Stage 4 of 2021 Tour de France (Credit: Pauline Ballet, ASO)<\/p>\n

Michael Matthews has shed some light on his pulmonary embolism diagnosis, telling Daniel Benson on his Substack<\/a> that he could have died if he continued to train.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Team Jayco-AlUla cyclist initially believed his problems were down to allergies, but as he struggled to train, he found it was far more serious.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said that if I kept doing the training I was doing for another two days, then I could have [died].”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was going on for a while. I was doing my normal training, and I just couldn\u2019t breathe. I thought it was just allergies because it was happening all through the Classics and I was getting to the point in a race where I just couldn\u2019t go any deeper and I wasn\u2019t sure if it was a hunger knock, a lack of fitness or I wasn\u2019t good enough but from one moment to the next I had to stop pedalling and it was getting worse and worse.<\/p>\n

\"2022<\/p>\n

2022 Tour De France – Stage 14 -Saint-Etienne to Mende – France\u00a0Michael Matthews (Credit: Zac Williams\/SWpix.com)\u00a0<\/p>\n

The problem escalated during a high-altitude training camp in Livigno. He said: \u201cI was in Livigno to prepare for the Tour, and I was using this allergy medication for my breathing, but it got to the point where I was doing these efforts that we do every year at the end of the camp, but after one effort, it felt like I was choking underwater.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked to my coach, halfway up this climb, and was doing the \u2018I\u2019m dead\u2019 sign, and he said to keep pushing, but I had no air in my lungs, and I couldn\u2019t get my heart rate above 120, which was really strange at altitude.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He ended up stopping the exercise and walking to the town, which made his heart rate jump to 140.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to A&E and did a blood test straight away, and they could see the blood clots straight away. We did a CT scan of my lungs, and they were like \u2018holy fuck, this isn\u2019t what a person your age should be like.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a scary moment in my life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The doctors initially warned that his whole career could be over. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know how long it would take to fix, or even if we could.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to stop and start again and again, but I had a really good support crew around me that kept me motivated. We did get the green light to start again, and that felt like I was reborn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Matthews and Jay Vine celebrate winning the mixed relay TTT for Australia, 2025 world championships, Kigali (Credit: Simon Wilkinson\/SWpix.com)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now back to racing with a clean bill of health, Matthew says the experience has changed how he views cycling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For me, it was more of a wake-up, and this feels like a second chance for me, and that this happened for a reason. It\u2019s a chance to change my racing style a bit. The whole of cycling has changed, and I also need to change my style tool.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy thinking at the time was that either my body decided that I had to retire, or I come back and it\u2019s a second chance, so that\u2019s how I\u2019m taking it with all the clots gone. It\u2019s a second chance in cycling and in life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m much more aggressive and not just waiting for the sprint all the time. That\u2019s the racing that I want to do, and the team are going to help with that. We\u2019ve built a team that is geared towards rolling the dice a bit and not just sitting back and waiting. It\u2019s all happened at a nice time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matthews is not the only high-profile rider to speak about serious health issues. Sam Bennett recently spoke to road.cc about a heart procedure he underwent in November<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Sam Bennett, 2022 Vuelta (Credit: PhotoGomezSport)<\/p>\n

The Irish sprinter revealed he had been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AFib), a condition that causes the heartbeat to become irregular and often faster than normal due to disrupted electrical signals in the heart. Just five days after the diagnosis, Bennett underwent an ablation procedure to correct the issue.<\/p>\n

Because he was placed on blood thinners following the operation, Bennett was unable to train on the road for several months, with doctors advising it took around three months for his heart to fully heal before he could return to full training.<\/p>\n

Bennett also is returning to training determined. He said: \u201cI just want to be in the races competing. I don\u2019t want to be making up numbers, getting killed in every race. I want to be at my best level. And then if I reach that, then of course if I hit certain targets, that I get my opportunity in Grand Tours, or whatever it may be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Matthews congratulates Mark Cavendish after Stage 4 of 2021 Tour de France (Credit: Pauline Ballet, ASO) Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-428608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}