After a gruelling six hours to complete the longest road race in Olympic history at 272.1km, Michael Matthews crossed the finish line under the Eiffel Tower in 15th place ahead of teammates Simon Clarke in 32nd and Ben O’Connor in 51st.

The race for gold was essentially over with 20km to go when Evenepoel attacked the breakaway and built a significant lead that could not be reeled in. This left the two French riders to secure the silver and bronze from a fractured chase group.

“We dreamed of a better result obviously and we left it all out there. Unfortunately it wasn’t what we hoped for, but we went down fighting, we will bounce back for the next one,” Simon said.

“It was a real challenge out there, with a lack of radios and communication you don’t always know what the situation is, but we just did our best with what we could see and that’s all we could do.”

Michael had good legs during the race but the Aussies were unable to combat rival nations who had more riders in the peloton.

“It didn’t go according to plan, obviously we wanted to be fighting for a medal today, so I’m disappointed,” he said.

“I think the legs were good on the climb, I was one of the few that wasn’t that far off the (Mathieu) van der Poel and (Wout) van Aert group so finishing where I finished is disappointing.

“When you’ve got teams like Belgium with two clear leaders, they can run two game plans with van Aert and Evenepoel - one with a long move and one for a reduced sprint - so that was key today.

“Also people not in their normal jerseys, different numbers, so looking at the board from the motorbike you have no idea who was in front, it was a bit of chaos, but the same for everyone.”

The Paris Games was Michael’s Olympic debut at the age of 33 and he hasn’t ruled out bidding for Los Angeles in 2028.

“We’ll see, I’m 33 now so hopefully one more, another shot, but will have to wait a couple of years now,” he said.

Reece Homfray