Five Vuelta stage wins on his Grand Tour debut - The rise of Visma’s British sprinter Matthew Brennan

Matthew Brennan is a British sprinter who races for Team Visma | Lease a Bike. A double junior world champion on the track, he won the Tour of Norway in his first WorldTour season and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne the following spring. At the 2026 Vuelta a Espana, he became the first rider since 1979 to win five stages on his Grand Tour debut.

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Brennan grew up in Darlington and joined Stockton Wheelers aged 12. He raced on the road for Fensham Howes-MAS Design as a junior, finishing second on stages of the Saarland Trofeo and GP Ruebliland in 2022. The following spring he won the Guido Reybrouck Classic overall after taking second in the opening time trial and fourth on the road stage. He finished fifth in the British junior road race and later won the opening stage of Keizer der Juniores in Belgium.

On the track in 2023, Brennan took European junior individual pursuit silver behind Luca Giaimi in Anadia. He reversed that result at the junior World Championships in Cali, setting a junior world record of 3:07.092 over three kilometres. He also won the Madison with Ben Wiggins and took silver in the scratch race.

Brennan joined Visma’s development team in 2024 and won his first two races in Croatia, the Umag Trophy and Porec Trophy. He finished third at the Circuit de Wallonie, fourth overall at the Orlen Nations Grand Prix and sixth at Rund um Koln. Visma announced his promotion to the WorldTour in May, before he won the final stage of the Giro Next Gen from a ten-rider breakaway in Forlimpopoli. He was 11th in the elite British road race and finished fifth in the prologue and third on stage 2 of the Tour de l’Avenir.

Brennan finished second on the opening stage of the 2025 Tour Down Under. In March he won Le Tour des 100 Communes and the GP de la Ville de Lillers with Visma’s development squad before taking his first professional win at the GP de Denain. Four days later he chased down Tibor Del Grosso in the closing metres of the Volta a Catalunya opener to take his first WorldTour win and the race lead. He finished second to Ethan Vernon the following day and won again on stage 5 into Amposta.

He finished 44th on his Paris-Roubaix debut, then won stage 1 of the Tour de Romandie in Fribourg after more than 3,000 metres of climbing. He won Rund um Koln and took two stage wins and two second places at the Tour of Norway, claiming the overall, points and young rider classifications. At the British championships in June, he was seventh in the time trial and second to Samuel Watson in the road race.

Brennan won stage 5 of the Tour de Pologne into Zakopane and two stages of the Deutschland Tour, where he finished fourth overall. Olav Kooij led him out to victory in Ampthill at the Tour of Britain, making him the youngest stage winner in the men’s race’s history. He followed that with second places at the SUPER 8 Classic and GP d’Isbergues. Visma extended his contract through 2029 in December and credited him with 14 wins for the season, 12 of them at professional level.

Brennan won the final stage of the 2026 Tour Down Under in Stirling and finished second to Tobias Lund Andresen at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. He crashed out of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad but won Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne the following day, sprinting from a reduced bunch after a lead-out from Christophe Laporte. Illness kept him out of Milano-Sanremo. He abandoned his first Tour of Flanders and finished 120th at Paris-Roubaix before returning in May to win three stages and the points classification at the Fleche du Sud. In August he won stages 1 and 4 of the Vuelta a Burgos.

On his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a Espana, Brennan beat Pau Miquel and Tadej Pogacar in the uphill sprint into Manosque on stage 2. Wout van Aert and Laporte helped set up his second win in Roquetes, and Van Aert led him out again for his third in Lorca. Brennan finished third in Loja on stage 13 as Van Aert won, then took back-to-back victories in La Rabida and Seville. In Seville he beat Jordi Meeus and Magnus Cort to become the first rider since Fons De Wolf in 1979 to win five stages on his Grand Tour debut.

Brennan attacked on the final stage in Granada and finished fourth, ending the Vuelta second to Van Aert in the points classification. The pair won seven stages between them. Brennan raced twice more in October, finishing 46th at the Munsterland Giro and 33rd at Binche-Chimay-Binche, and ended the year with 12 wins.

He has since set his sights on the opening yellow jersey at the 2027 Tour de France. Visma has yet to confirm his selection for the British Grand Depart, which opens with a road stage from Edinburgh to Carlisle.