Twenty-one years old, four stage wins, one Grand Tour
Matthew Brennan is riding his first Grand Tour. He has now won four stages of it. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider took stage 16 of the Vuelta at La Rabida this afternoon, clear by several bike lengths after 181.1 kilometres from Cortegana. Bryan Coquard was second, Vito Braet third.
There was no drag race. Brennan kicked, and the gap simply appeared. Wout van Aert had done the ugly work in the final few hundred metres, dragging his team-mate into position before fading to sixth with nothing left.
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Visma controlled the whole afternoon
Five men tried to steal the day from the sprinters. Kevin Vermaerke, Valentin Madouas, Simon Dalby, Jasha Sutterlin and Roland Thalmann got up the road and never held more than two minutes. Visma reeled them in with just under 30 kilometres left.
The wind promised more than it delivered. Echelons formed twice, neither stuck, and Uno-X Mobility found themselves on the wrong side of one split before clawing back on.
Soudal Quick-Step lined up its train for Alberto Dainese under the flamme rouge. Van Aert came past and that was the end of the argument.
A flat stage on a route that barely has any
No categorised climbs all day. On a Vuelta built for climbers and hammered by heat, that made this a rarity. Sunday’s stage 15 had already been trimmed by 70 kilometres to protect the peloton.
Brennan and Van Aert have taken six of the 16 stages raced so far between them. The Belgian sits on top of the points classification in green.
Enric Mas still has red. The Movistar rider holds 2’06 over Felix Gall and 2’10 over Primoz Roglic, with a brutal final week of mountains and a time trial to come. Tadej Pogacar left the race after crashing on stage 8.
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