Mathew Hayman: The teams I could have raced for
The Australian shares his story on teams he could have raced for and why he stayed at Rabobank and Team Sky for multiple contracts
Good morning subscribers,
We’re kicking off today’s coverage with an exclusive interview with Mathew Hayman, the former Paris-Roubaix winner and sports director at Jayco AlUla. We talked to the Australian about the teams he could have raced for and why he eventually decided to move on from Rabobank and Team Sky.
We’ll also have two more stories today, including a preview for Amstel Gold Race.
I’m also excited to confirm that I’ll be at the Tour of the Alps next week.
Back in November, when I scrambling around and trying to make plans for the Substack, the race organisers from the Tour of the Alps were incredibly patient and kind, inviting me to their event, even though this project was in its infancy. Ten months in, and we’re at 5,200 subscribers and heading to our SIXTH trip of the year after reporting from two rounds of training camps, Etoile de Bessèges, Volta ao Algarve, and several of the cobbled Classics.
I can’t wait to hit the ground running at the Tour of Alps, where I’ll pick up interviews, transfer news, and race analysis. And just like the Classics, most of my audio interviews will be posted in the Founding Members’ WhatsApp group.
Have a great day.
Daniel 🫶
Mathew Hayman was widely recognised as one of his era's most respected and hardworking domestiques. Of course, that perspective was only enhanced when he won an epic edition of Paris-Roubaix in 2016.
With a career that spanned three decades, he spent just over half of it at Rabobank (2000-2009) before enjoying stints at Team Sky and GreenEdge. He finally retired at the Tour Down Under in 2019.
The number of teams he could have raced for isn’t particularly long or extensive, but during the Spring Classics, we caught up with Hayman, who provided more insight into why he stayed at Rabobank for so long, whether he regretted it, and where he could have gone in the early 2000s and later when Slipstream - now EF Education-EasyPost - came calling.
“You never know how concrete things are, but early on, I think that Mapei were setting up around the time that I signed with Rabobank. There was some interest there. At the time, I was on the Rabobank development team, around the same time that Mapei were setting up two teams, and when Rabobank heard this, they got onto me pretty quickly, and we put pen to paper. So I didn’t really explore that avenue,” Hayman told us.
“Mapei were obviously the best team in the world at the time. They were setting up a development team, and were leading the way and a year later, I think Michael Rogers, who was in the same generation as me, started on the development team before stepping up to the big team,” he said.
Hayman turned promising results in the U23 category into wins in only his second year in Rabobank colours in 2001, and as the years ticked by he transitioned into something of an all-rounder; a constant presence in the Spring Classics as well as a dependable domestique in the Grand Tours - although he didn’t get a shot at the Tour until 2014.
Read more: Richie Porte: The teams I could have raced for
“After I signed with Rabobank, there weren’t that many teams that I wanted to ride for. I was in talks with Matt White to go to Slipstream before Team Sky. I had trained with Matt, and I knew him from back in Australia. As riders, we weren’t doing the Tour that often, and a bunch of us Australians would go to Livigno to train during July, and we’d always kept in touch. He asked a couple of times, and we just never got it over the line. I was definitely interested. As one of the English-speaking teams and an English-speaking person, it wasn’t like every team was open when you narrow it down to where you’d go,” he said.