Rapid Riser

Hugo Gladstone recently caught up with Matt Goss, one of Australia’s hottest young talents who has set the world alight in 2006 and recently signed a contract with CSC.

Matt GossJust as any career advisor, self-help book or drunken pub philosopher will tell you, first impressions last. The story of Matt Goss’ season is testament to this. When the curly haired 19- year-old Tasmanian flew over to Italy to embark on this year’s road season, he got stuck into it straightaway. Having already claimed a World Championship title on the track in France, he out sprinted the rest of the bunch in his first European road race this year, the prestigious GP Liberazione in Rome. The very next day he was at it again, outfoxing four other breakaways in the first stage of the Giro delle Regioni, including the then reigning under-23 world champion Dymytriy Grabovskiy. A team time trial win and a second place followed in the Thuringen Rundfahrt in Germany, preceding two more stage victories and the point’s classification in Spain’s Vuelta Navarra. A week or two later, he was at the Baby Giro, the amateur equivalent of the Tour of Italy. On the third stage, still within just a few weeks of touching down in Italy, Goss claimed his fifth individual road win of the season.

The upshot of this impressive start to his road campaign, was that as the European season drew to a close, Goss was signed by one of the biggest team’s in cycling, CSC. Although not quite so hard hitting, Goss emitted good first impressions when I met him in Glasgow before the start of the first stage of the Tour of Britain.He was about to start a race against some pretty big names (Boonen, Kloden, Astarloa), but still came across as relaxed and friendly. Perched on the bonnet of the South Australia.com-AIS team car, he happily compared what was a cold Scottish summer’s day to winter back home in Launceston. An hour or so later, Goss was impressing on me further. As the race radio crackled into life for first time that day, his number was revealed as one of three members of a runaway breakaway.

One time check they had 45 seconds, and the next, four and half minutes. Our car slotted in behind the move and we spent the rest of the day tracing Goss, Luis Pasamontes and eventual overall race winner Martin Pedersen through the rolling Scottish countryside. Although Goss lost the stage after being forced to lead out the sprint, he claimed the yellow jersey by winning time bonuses the following day. He then had to abandon the race while in the lead on the third stage after a niggling knee injury had flared up during an aggressive day of racing. Other riders in his position might have battled on, but Goss still had bigger fish to fry. “I could have kept going to try to finish the Tour but I’ve got the Worlds in two weeks,” he explained afterwards. “I don’t want to have to take time off the bike and then have to miss the Worlds.”
 Matt Goss's purple South Australia jersey
 

Route Map to Success