Matt Richardson, four years after winning Commonwealth gold for Australia, will return to the Games wearing England colours – and sharing the athletes' village with a girlfriend representing Wales. The arrangement certainly gives a new meaning to the 'Friendly Games'.
High-Profile Switch of Allegiance
Richardson, whose partner is Olympic champion Emma Finucane, is one of Team England's leading medal hopes after a high-profile switch of allegiance that surprised many in the sport. The move came after an Olympic campaign in Paris that yielded two silver medals and a bronze.
Born in England and raised in Australia after his family relocated from Kent when he was nine, the now 27-year-old watched the 2018 Commonwealth Games as a junior rider, having recently abandoned a promising gymnastics career because of an elbow injury. Four years later, he emerged as one of the stars of Birmingham 2022, winning gold in both the individual and team sprint.
Homecoming in Birmingham
“At Birmingham 2022, I was racing for Australia but in the UK,” he said. “I had more friends and family come and watch me than at any other race that I had ever had. It was a great atmosphere in that velodrome. The last Commonwealth Games almost didn't feel like an away Commonwealth Games. It almost felt like home to me.”
Richardson dominated the sprint programme in Birmingham, beating all British opposition before cementing his reputation as one of the world's leading track cyclists with three medals at the Paris Olympics two years later. Soon afterwards, he stunned the sport by announcing a switch to Great Britain, for whom he qualified through his birth in Maidstone.
Idolising Chris Hoy
Yet Richardson's greatest inspiration is neither an Australian nor an Englishman, but the Scot whose name graces Glasgow's velodrome. “Chris Hoy has always been my idol on and off the bike,” he added. “My first memory of the Olympics is watching Chris win the keirin in Beijing in 2008 so he's always been at the forefront of my mind when it came to track cycling.
“I love racing in the Chris Hoy Velodrome. The track itself has its little differences. It makes it a slightly different style of racing. The straights are very long for starters so that can change the dynamic of racing because opponents have more time to pass from behind. That can catch you out sometimes if you're not careful.
“The 200-metre timing line is quite late in the corner so the line you would take in a flying 200 needs to be slightly different to maximise it.”
World Record Achievement
At a British Cycling event in Konya, Turkey, Richardson set a world record of 8.857 seconds for the flying 200m, becoming the first rider to break the nine-second barrier. He said: “My favourite moment with Team England has to be the world record for the amount of work and effort that I put into it. To go there and do exactly what I wanted to do was really, really special.
“Whether it was here riding for GB or for Australia, that would always be one of the absolute top-tier highlights of my career. To make history and still be the only rider to go sub-nine seconds is really special to me.”
He has continued to build on that success, winning two silver medals at the World Track Cycling Championships in Santiago last year and becoming the first British man to win a European sprint title in Konya earlier this year.
Eyes on Los Angeles 2028
Beyond Glasgow, however, lies the ultimate objective: the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. He said: “The Commonwealth Games are so special because it's the only time that I get to represent England once every four years. The form that I've been carrying recently puts me in a good place for this year and also the year after and the year after. It's all about the momentum I'm trying to carry going into the Los Angeles Olympics.”
Talk of the Olympics is rife in the Richardson/Finucane household, as the Welshwoman is equally fixated on adding to her medal tally from Paris. Alongside Sophie Capewell and Katy Marchant, she broke the world record three times on the way to gold in the team sprint, before adding bronze medals in the keirin and the sprint to become the first British woman to win three medals at a single Games since Mary Rand in 1964.
Finucane's Perspective
She told Cyclist: "I feel like I grew so much off the bike that now, going into 2026, I have more of a focus. I was asked recently why I don’t feel like I do during the Olympics year every year. It’s such a magical thing that happens every four years, and protecting this to appreciate the lead up to the Olympics more. I go into a routine then I won’t go home as much. If I want to be here for ten years, I need to have this balance. Cycling consumes you. It’s your life. I love it, I wouldn’t do it otherwise, but it’s finding that balance – a time and a place for everything."
But despite her achievements, the 23-year-old will still feel she has unfinished business at the Commonwealth Games. Four years ago in Birmingham, she clinched two bronzes in the sprint and team sprint, and came away delighted to have exceeded her expectations and delivered two of Wales’ impressive six-medal haul in the velodrome. She said: “It’s so unique. It’s a nice environment and we’re such a small country. Last time I was 19 years old and I was so young; it was overwhelming. I think this time around I’ll be able to soak it up more. We go back to Glasgow and I love that velodrome. It’s different not racing for Great Britain because then you’re lining up against your teammates, but that’s what I love about it.”
Managing Expectations
In the time since Birmingham, Finucane has grown into one of the world’s most feared riders, to the extent that she struggled to manage the expectations laid on her shoulders at the Paris Olympics in 2024, resorting to crying before each race to release her emotions. She told the Guardian: “I wouldn’t say I need to push it to one side but I need to learn from it. At the next Olympics in LA [in 2028] I don’t want to be the same person. I want to learn why did I feel like that? Why did I need to let that emotion out? Who did I speak to who made me feel better? It’s emotionally exhausting when you’re racing for seven days and, as I look at Olympic champions who win multiple Olympic medals, that needs to be addressed.”
The story of a medal-laden match-making in the velodrome is a well-told one in the UK, but Richardson and Finucane are not simply Gen Z’s Jason and Laura Kenny, nor do they want to be, despite Laura’s glowing endorsements of the pair in her new role as President of the Commonwealth Games England.
Between Finucane’s emotional burden and Richardson’s peppering of abuse on social media after he switched nationality, the internet age has carved them into a more vulnerable, yet more grounded form in the public eye. Time will tell if that ground yields more gold.
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