Sunweb surprised Michael Matthews a month after the 2020 season resumed, making the first major change to its race program in five years not to include the Tour de France.

The 29-year-old Australian rider has been preparing and discussing the Ardennes Classics and the Tour since shortly after the season began.

Matthews believes that he should have delayed his return to competition longer and is "terrified" of the health and safety implications of a premature return amid the global pandemic.

Team Sunweb announced its race lineup on Wednesday, naming Matthews as a starter for the August 8 Milan-San Remo and October 3-25 Giro d'Italia; he is not included in the group running the August 29-September 20 Tour de France and October Classics. Not included.

The three-time Tour stage winner and 2017 green jersey winner will not be joining his teammates at their training camp in Austria and will be at home preparing for Milan-San Remo, his first race back. [Matthews, who last year extended his contract with Sunweb until the end of 2021, spoke to Cycling News from his base in Livigno, Italy, after the announcement and said he plans to speak with team management on Thursday or Friday to confirm his revised goals.

"I went back to the team and said I wanted to stick to the program we had at the beginning of the year, like the Tour and the Classics, and yes, they stuck to the Giro and San Remo and Il Lombardia earlier this year," Matthews said.

"It's nice to have the Giro. I love the Giro and I'm trying to incorporate it into my program starting in 2015. I have great memories of this race, so I wouldn't say I missed it. I'm excited for the Giro."

Matthews has adhered to virtually the same race program since joining Sunweb in 2017, opening the season with Paris-Nice and then focusing primarily on classics, the Tour, and World Tour one-day races in Canada. Last year he mentioned the possibility of starting the Giro for a change, but was as surprised as the pundits about his omission from the postponed Tour, where his Dutch teammate Cees Bol was nominated, given his previous preparations and instructions.

Matthews said that Sunweb management has yet to explain why his program was changed.

"I think through the lockdown, preparing for the start of the season is probably what everybody was doing.

"But yeah, I think now we have to change our mindset about our new goals and try to make the most of it.

"There are still some great races left, Milan San Remo, Lombardia, and Tirreno Adriatico, where we haven't had much success. With that in mind, we must do our best in the races we have," he reiterated.

Matthews, a neo-pro who made his Tour de France debut last year, finished second behind Detuning-Quick-Step's Julien Alaphilippe in the group sprint on stage 3 and fourth in two other individual stages.

Matthews has had success in the last two Giro's: in his race debut in 2014, he won the Maria Rosa and took one individual stage win in Orica-GreenEdge and the team time trial in the season opener in Belfast, Northern Ireland. And he replicated that performance in 2015.

Before the race was suspended due to a coronavirus outbreak, the Giro attracted most of the World Tour's top sprinters and attracted the debut of Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe).

Matthews, meanwhile, joined a chorus of World Tour officials concerned about the resumption of World Tour-level competition on August 1, including Dečuninck-Quick Step manager Patrick Lefebvre and Lot Soudal's Jasper De Baist.

Earlier this week, de Baist told Belgian media that in a peloton of more than 150 athletes, "it is impossible to run without snorting each other's noses," which is a problem given the transmission route of the coronavirus.

Matthews is particularly concerned about the health and well-being of his wife and young family, who wear masks whenever they go out, and fears that not everyone can or will be as vigilant on the road. [because they are athletes, they are fit, they are healthy, and they do not have to think about their wives and children at home, only about themselves.

"But they don't realize how much coronavirus we can spread at the same time. For example, if you snot on someone at a bike race, or you snot in a bottle and throw it into the crowd, and someone in the crowd drinks the bottle, and the coronavirus is on the bottle, they can infect their family members as well. The virus is very contagious very fast

"I don't know if no race is the answer. I personally don't know what the answer is. But I think we can delay the race a little bit longer and let the virus settle down more. But it's not up to me."

Sunweb, unlike some other teams, did not have to introduce pay cuts to survive financially from the pandemic, but Matthews, like many others, did so not for the sake of public health but for the business model of the House of Cards in which the sport operates, He is skeptical that the revised season will be fully implemented.

"From the moment I was able to run outside, I personally assumed there would be no races this year. I thought it was impossible."

"Obviously a lot of protocols were put in place, such as testing before going to a race and every rider having their own room. I think only certain "bubble" riders go to the races together. There is also a post-race quarantine.

"But for a race like the one in Canada, for example, you might have to have two planes because you can't have so many riders on the plane at one time. The number of buses traveling from Quebec to Montreal would also double, and the number of rooms would double, because the buffet would not allow everyone to eat in the same room," Matthews said. [Financially, it will be very difficult for many of the races. If you think about it, the races are obviously sponsored by money.

"Under the current protocol, every rider gets their own room at every race. Considering the organizers who are footing the hotel bill, that means at least twice as many hotels and hotel rooms," he continued.

"So it's not just that riders are afraid of getting sick. In this global financial crisis, when sponsors don't even know if they'll be able to hold the race, and also to spend twice as much on security for the riders, ......."

Worries and twists and turns aside, Matthews is ready to get back in shape and resume racing next month. The season opener was Paris-Nice, as usual, and then all competition was suspended, but even during lockdown, the team has been in good shape ahead of the Virtual Tour de France, which starts this weekend.

"I'm in very good shape," he said. My training numbers are better than they were before Paris-Nice. I hope to keep this form up until the start of the season and start with a bang."