{"id":347641,"date":"2025-08-15T22:38:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T22:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/347641\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T22:38:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T22:38:13","slug":"look-away-aussies-cyclist-who-defected-to-great-britain-has-smashed-another-record-after-turning-back-on-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/347641\/","title":{"rendered":"Look away Aussies. Cyclist who defected to Great Britain has smashed ANOTHER record after turning back on Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"mol-bullets-with-font\">\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Was born in England but raised in Perth\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Elected to ride for his country of birth<\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"class\"><strong>Is now showing Aussies what they are missing\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"author-section byline-plain\">By IAN CHADBAND FOR AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS <\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-section\"> Published:  17:06 EDT, 15 August 2025   |  Updated:  17:06 EDT, 15 August 2025   <\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Matthew Richardson, the cyclist who rode away from Australia&#8217;s clutches to compete for Great Britain, has smashed the world 200-metre track speed record for the second time in 24 hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">At the high-altitude Konya Velodrome in Turkey, Richardson had set a 200m flying start record on Thursday, becoming the first man to break the nine-second barrier.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">A day later, he was convinced he could go faster over a lap.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The English-born, Perth-raised flyer won three medals for Australia on the track in Paris last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">True to his word, he lowered his record from 8.941 seconds to 8.857, cementing his status as the \u2018fastest man on two wheels\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Slicing another 0.84 seconds off the record left the 26-year-old relieved and delighted that he had finally found his best form in the sprinter&#8217;s lane.<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-e8f4cb96e684589f\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101271627-15005127-image-a-1_1755290625410.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"Matthew Richardson of Great Britain breaks the world record in the 200-meter sprint with a time of 8.941 seconds during track cycling world record attempts in Konya, Turkiye\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">Matthew Richardson of Great Britain breaks the world record in the 200-meter sprint with a time of 8.941 seconds during track cycling world record attempts in Konya, Turkiye<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" id=\"i-47f4c9fb75ee2d6f\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/101271629-15005127-image-a-2_1755290628122.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\" alt=\"It is the second time that\u00a0Richardson has set a new world record since defecting from Australia to Great Britain\" class=\"blkBorder img-share\" style=\"max-width:100%\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>   <\/p>\n<p class=\"imageCaption\">It is the second time that\u00a0Richardson has set a new world record since defecting from Australia to Great Britain\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I knew there was more time on the table after yesterday&#8217;s &#8216;out of sprint lane&#8217; ride, so I knew if I came in with good execution and rode as close to the black as possible I&#8217;d go quicker &#8211; and that&#8217;s what happened,&#8217; said Richardson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I&#8217;m feeling pretty good, a big, big relief. I knew there was more in the tank yesterday, so I was obviously really stoked about yesterday but I was hungry for more.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">The two days in Turkey have represented the high point so far of Richardson&#8217;s revamped career in British colours.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">He switched allegiance from Australia last year after his Games success, believing there would be better opportunities for him representing the country of his birth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">He did set the 200m world record briefly for Australia at the Paris Games before it was broken by his great Dutch rival and Olympic champion, Harrie Lavreysen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">Now he&#8217;s managed to set two marks in 24 hours, he was asked how long he expected his new landmark to last for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mol-para-with-font\">&#8216;I don&#8217;t know, it&#8217;s out of my control now,&#8217; smiled Richardson, whose average speed during his record-breaking lap was a staggering 81.291 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n<p>                    Share or comment on this article:<br \/>\n                        Look away Aussies. Cyclist who defected to Great Britain has smashed ANOTHER record after turning back on Australia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Was born in England but raised in Perth\u00a0 Elected to ride for his country of birth Is now&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[186,748,92,393,4884,1144,7126,1411,568,712,93,9722,461,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-347641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-dailymail","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-olympics","17":"tag-paris","18":"tag-perth","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-sport","21":"tag-team-gb","22":"tag-turkey","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115035183774759151","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}