‘We are really different’: Matthew Brennan on ‘next Cavendish’ hype and his five-star Vuelta debut

Visma-Lease A Bike rider reflects on his stunning Grand Tour debut that has proved ‘the work had all been worth it’

W hen Matthew Brennan sat down with his team before the race to study this year’s Vuelta a España route, the young Briton had limited expectations for his Grand Tour debut. Fast forward a few weeks and the 21-year-old from Darlington is the youngest rider ever to win five stages in a single Grand Tour.

He is also the youngest to win back-to-back stages. His fifth win was the seventh for his Visma‑Lease A Bike team in this Vuelta, the highest number they have ever achieved at this level, surpassing the tallies of six set at the 2022 Tour de France and this year’s Giro d’Italia.

Brennan’s has been one of the most remarkable Grand Tour debuts in history, and there’s a chance he may even take a sixth win in Sunday’s final stage in Granada.

As he has racked up the wins, the comparisons with the British sprint legend Mark Cavendish have become inevitable. Brennan is flattered but says he and the Manxman are not the same.

“It’s a really nice comparison, but we are really different riders,” he tells the Guardian after the Vuelta’s stage 18 time trial . “I can cope with stages that go up to three and a half thousand metres of climbing and still be there at the finish, while I don’t think that he would. But to be compared with such a savvy, classy rider is all good.”

There was already a buzz about Brennan before his Grand Tour debut. Even so, nobody had expected this level of success. As the Vuelta has progressed, he and his experienced teammate Wout van Aert have become something of a double act.

“It helps a lot that I have got one of the world’s best teams around me and that Wout is there,” Brennan says. “He is always so good at positioning that I end up thinking: ‘I didn’t actually do much there.’ The team gives me a lot of confidence.”

Already, he and Van Aert seem to have developed an intuitive relationship. “I know whatever happens, we will be racing it together. He’s a really good racer. We don’t have to speak much. And I’ve taken pride in helping him out,” Brennan adds, referring to the work he has contributed to Van Aert’s two stage wins.

“The whole team is pretty like‑minded,” Brennan says, citing their ability to “deal with hectic situations” in sprint finishes. He casts his mind back to the plans hatched with his sporting directors before the race.

“We initially looked at 10 stages as options, but then we narrowed it down to five, in which the team said they would back me 100%,” he says.

The stage finishes he targeted were in Manosque, Roquetes, Lorca, Palos de Frontera and Seville. Incredibly, Brennan sprinted to success in all five.

Of those five, Brennan says the first, stage two in Manosque , was the highlight: “There’d been training camps and two and a half months of buildup, so the first one was really good, almost like a breath of fresh air, and proof that the work had all been worth it.”

Brennan has also spoken out on behalf of a peloton that has raced in 40C heat many times this summer. After the stage to Córdoba was held in extreme temperatures, he was critical of the UCI, cycling’s world governing body.