A 20-hour-plus flight is a very long time to fret about the way you’ll be obtained while you land on the opposite aspect. So when Matthew Richardson flew from the UK to Australia earlier than Christmas, he did so with a slight tinge of nervousness.
Escaping the British winter, the 25-year-old returned to the nation he gained three Olympic medals representing final summer time. He wasn’t anticipating a hero’s welcome, although. Fairly the alternative, actually, as a result of within the time that had elapsed because the Video games, he had undergone a high-profile nationality swap, altering his allegiances to Nice Britain, his nation of beginning.
On the time, Richardson learn the polarising social media feedback from his new house within the UK. Many, notably Brits, welcomed the change and the prospect of rooting for one of many world’s greatest monitor sprinters. Others have been extra crucial, with a vocal few branding him a “traitor” from Down Below. When he obtained off the airplane, would an offended mob be ready for him within the arrivals lounge?
“It’s laborious to grasp the dimensions of issues while you aren’t there,” Richardson says. “I used to be so distant from the place that was truly a state of affairs, that after I went again, I used to be type of considering, ‘How is that this going to go be?’ Not simply with the biking group, however would individuals recognise me on the airport as I got here in?”
The reply, he was relieved to search out out, was no. Not a soul.
“It was nice,” he grins. “I used to be like, ‘Sure, nobody cares! That is incredible!’ Individuals solely care on Fb. It was a breath of recent air, as a result of I simply wasn’t 100% certain how it might truly play out.”
That basic indifference in direction of his nationality swap continued past the doorways of the airport. He remembers one encounter particularly with a neighborhood bike mechanic, who gave him a surprisingly heat welcome.
“He was like, ‘Are you the man that swapped? Good on you! Do you what you wish to do!’” Richardson says. “For a second I used to be like, ‘Oh no, he is aware of who I’m. This isn’t going to go very properly.’ However it simply reveals that the group of haters is so small and minute.”
On one other day, Richardson returned to his previous biking membership, Midland, who launched him to trace sprinting as an adolescent. Regardless of travelling together with his new GB package, he requested in the event that they’d relatively he wore his membership package throughout a session at Perth Velodrome. “They have been like, ‘No! Put on the GB package! We wish to see the GB package!’” he says.
“The group of individuals which can be hating is such a small group of individuals, and it actually got here to gentle after I was again in Australia. I used to be a bit nervous about the way it was going to go across the biking group, and the response that I obtained was simply superb.”
Everybody, actually, was “tremendous supportive”, Richardson discovered.
“It was an excellent surreal expertise for me to be again there the place it began, however now in GB package,” he says. “I bear in mind listening to tales from when the dash crew used to go, like Chris [Hoy] and Jason [Kenny] and all these guys. You’d be like, ‘Wow.’ They used to come back out right here and prepare, and now I’m one of many GB athletes going on the market to coach, clearly underneath a distinct circumstance.”
Richardson has since traded his mornings on the seaside for the brisk Manchester chill, and returned to his base within the UK. This weekend, he’ll vye for his maiden British titles on the Nationwide Monitor Championships. He’ll then flip his focus to his first outings with the Nice Britain nationwide squad – subsequent month’s UCI Nations Cup and October’s UCI Monitor World Championships – at each of which he’s prone to face his former Australian team-mates.
Six months have now handed since Richardson first introduced his nationality swap. Does he assume the net criticism will proceed this yr? “I anticipate there’ll be eyes on me after I do properly, is what I’ll say,” he says.
“The sense that I obtained final yr was that at any time when I’d reach one thing or do properly, that’s when probably the most quantity of stuff would come, making an attempt to both shut me down or beat me down a bit of bit,” he continues. “Clearly I gained’t let that occur.”
