Five wins on his first Grand Tour
Five. That is how many stages of this Vuelta a 21-year-old on his first Grand Tour has now won. Matthew Brennan outkicked Jordi Meeus and Magnus Cort in Seville on Wednesday afternoon, 185 kilometres out from Dos Hermanas, in 4h07’15”.
Manosque, Roquetes, Lorca, La Rabida, Seville. Only yesterday the Brit became the first rider since Fernando Gaviria at the 2017 Giro to take four stages on a debut Grand Tour. He did not wait long to add another.
Visma-Lease a Bike leave stage 17 with seven wins from 17. No Grand Tour has ever gone better for the Dutch squad. Wout van Aert took the other two, at Loja and Cordoba, before handing himself a different job.
Try it for $0.99.
Van Aert does the dirty work
The Belgian ran the finale. He closed down moves on Seville’s tight streets, then hauled Brennan through the last few hundred metres. Van Aert knows this finish intimately: second here in 2024, having gone too early and been picked off by Pavel Bittner. This time he set up his team-mate instead of backing himself.
Up the road, Enzo Paleni and Sinuhe Fernandez had been out since kilometre zero. Their gap pushed past five minutes by halfway. The Frenchman rode alone until three kilometres to go. Crosswinds cracked the bunch with 50 kilometres left, though the general classification riders all came through it.
Thursday’s time trial changes the maths
Enric Mas keeps red. The Majorcan is 2’06” up on Felix Gall and 2’10” on Primoz Roglic, with Richard Carapaz at 4’24” and Oscar Onley at 5’44”.
Then comes Jerez and an individual time trial, the discipline where Roglic takes chunks out of people. Mas has a mountain block waiting after that, and a lead built for climbing rather than for a flat 40 minutes against the clock. Movistar watched the wind all day with Thursday already on their minds.
Discover the rest of the Cycling news on our website and app mathodds!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply