Mathew Hayman had just finished giving a TV interview, his skin dry with dirt, when he saw his team-mate Luke Durbridge marching towards him across the grass in the centre of the Roubaix Velodrome. Having reached the line almost five minutes down, Durbridge didn’t know who had won. But he could see it in Hayman’s eyes – a cocktail of shock, disbelief and joy.
Hayman, joints stiffening, pushed himself up out of a folding wooden chair. “This doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen,” he muttered, as Durbridge pulled him in for a back-slapping hug. Durbridge then grabbed Hayman two-handed by the cheeks, and inches from his face, shouted back: “It does to you!”
