Multiple Tour de France stage winner Robbie McEwen thinks the fallout from Michael Matthews' silver medal in the men's road race at the world championships could cause a rift in the Orica-GreenEDGE team.
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Matthews told Cyclingnews he and fellow Australian sprinter Simon Gerrans had sprinted against each other in the worlds in Richmond, USA, on Monday morning (AEST) and he would have liked the full support of the Aussie team as they tried to chase down eventual winner Peter Sagan.
The Canberra cyclist felt he might have been able to claim gold if Gerrans hadn't also been going for the win.
But Sagan cruised across the line to win by three seconds, with Matthews winning the bunch sprint behind to claim the silver.
With both Matthews and Gerrans signed to Orica, McEwen felt it could cause problems next season, especially given they are similar riders.
"It's going to make things a little bit difficult for the team directors at Orica-GreenEDGE if those two guys are racing together, because there seems to be a bit of animosity there," he said.
"You often see that in sport, particularly in cycling, going for the same goals - one younger, one older [rider].
"It's either the older one gets towards the end of his career and then retires and the younger one takes over and gets free reign, or one of them moves on and goes to a different team.
"Or they have the management that can get them to co-habitate and set out clear guidelines."
McEwen had no problem with the Aussie team going in with two leaders, saying Gerrans was not a "domestique" and deserved to be a protected rider, having finished second at last year's worlds and also being a "great Classics rider".
He said Matthews knew this going into the race and just had to "get on with it".
McEwen experienced similar at world champs in the past, having gone in as a protected rider along with Stuart O'Grady and Baden Cooke in 2002.
He said Sagan was clearly the best rider and a worthy world champion, and he didn't think anything would have changed the result.
Even if it came down to a bunch sprint, McEwen still thought Sagan would have come away with the world champions jersey.
"There was one guy that was better than everybody, and far and away better than everybody, who was just out of reach," McEwen said.
"He had such a huge gap, it was over before any organised chase could begin - a motorbike would have been flat out catching him."
McEwen knows how hard world championships are to win.
The Queenslander won 12 Tour de France stages, three green jerseys for the Tour's points classification and multiple other races around the world.
But he couldn't crack a world championship. He finished close, managing second behind Mario Cipollini in 2002.
"I thought it was a great result, a silver at a world championships is a great result, I got one myself, and even though I was disappointed, as is Michael at this point, it's still a great result," McEwen said.
