Holmes Under The Banner

After beating Richie Porte to take the final stage of the Tour Down Under, Britain's Matt Holmes is making a bid for cycling stardom

- Chris Marshall

How would you celebrate a maiden WorldTour victory? Tears? Hands in the air?

In just his sixth day riding a race in cycling’s highest division, Lotto-Soudal’s Matthew Holmes denied Richie Porte his annual win on Willunga Hill at the Tour Down Under, becoming Britain’s first World Tour victor of the decade.

So how did it feel, Matthew? “Not. much different to normal, really.” Seriously? “Yeah.”

His directeur sportif Herman Frison was ecstatic: “I said to him, ‘This is great, fantastic. You’ve just won a WorldTour race.’ He replied, ‘Yes, yes.’ Normally a rider goes over the finish line with his hands up, but he cycled 500 metres further and came back. He was so very cool.”

There are many ways to interpret Holmes’s response. Modesty and self-deprecation are just two. But to him, this achievement was merely showing what he always thought he was capable of doing.

The Lancastrian feels like he belongs in cycling’s premier tier; his elevation, at 26, is belated. His lack of celebration was his way of showing that he has no plans on just being a one-win wonder.

There’s also the fact he believes he has always been on the wrong side of fortune.

“I didn’t put my hands in the air because I didn’t want to take the risk,” he said. “I have been unlucky so many times and I didn’t want Simon Yates to come past me at 100mph.”

A former member of British Cycling’s Olympic Development Programme, Holmes was disappointed not to be selected for the national governing body’s senior academy aged 18.