Incredible! British teen Matthew Brennan takes opening stage of Volta a Catalunya 2025 in ridiculous display of power
Cycling
Alpecin-Deceuninck's Tibor del Grosso looked to have the opening stage of the 2025 Volta a Catalunya wrapped up. In a thrilling finale though, Team Visma | Lease a Bike's British teenager Matthew Brennan denied the Dutchman in a thrilling finale!
Four riders managed to get themselves up the road and into the day's breakaway. With Mother Nature not shining on the riders though, the peloton were keen to not allow the breakaway too much leeway at the front, keeping the quartet of Jan Castellon, José Luis Faura, Nicolás Alustiza and Danny van der Tuuk inside two minutes for most of their time spent out ahead before eventually completing the catch at around 60km to go.
Following the catch of the break, the peloton calmed down considerably, with no more riders opting to try their luck with an attack in such adverse weather conditions.
Because the peloton held the front of the race, at the intermediate sprint some notable names come to the fore to compete for the bonus seconds. In the end, Enric Mas took 3 seconds and Primoz Roglic 1 bonus second. As the race then ignited again on the up-and-down parcours towards the finale, heading into the final 10km, some notable names such as Sepp Kuss and Axel Laurance had been caught out behind the front.
One of those riders not having missed out was Roglic and the Slovenian sensed an opportunity, sending his Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe teammates to the front of the leading group to try and take advantage.
As they descended towards the line however, it was Alpecin-Deceuninck's Tibor del Grosso who attacked, entering the final kilometre solo at the head of the race. Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Matthew Brennan refused to give up though and totally on his own powered back to Del Grosso, defeated both the Dutchman and his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Kaden Groved in a dramatic finale.
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- The finale of this race was an absolute mess, and the last crash that took out 1/2 of the field was caused when a double width road very suddenly funneled into a single lane, and riders had nowhere to go. I find it amazing how some of these courses get approved in the first place. So much for the UCI's campaign for improved rider safety, because if they actually cared, the organizers wouldn't have been allowed to run the finale on this parcours.
santiagobenites26-03-2025 - I hope Wout can come back. He has had 3 terrible crashes--not on par with Froome or Bernal, but at his level just a fraction of a percent is all that separates the grand champions of this new generation. Even if he is back all the way physically, those abrupt confrontations with pavement and mortality take a psychic toll, especially for a father of young kids.
Barney26-03-2025 - Everyone was so keen on free speech for a while, what happened ;-) But seriously, the problem is not so much that he gave his view as that someone follows it and spreads it, not totally unlike the schoolkids running US war games at present ;-)Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- We'll see what happens this year, hopefully he finds himself a little stronger.awp26-03-2025
- awp, the way and races he races, he probably doesn’t feel like he needs that many or specific race days before the Tour. His program isn’t very different from other years.Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- No, he just realises he’s not a one-day racer so why should he force himself?Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- Sacrificing E3 and G-W that were planned seems like he was hedging his options and only decided to do it after not winning MSR. Would he have planned to do all 5 and if so why hold back on announcing P-R if it wasn’t conditional? Guess people will get active with predictions now :-).Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- The MTB World title - there is no such thing. However, there are World titles in XCC, XCO, XCM, XCE, Enduro, Downhill......... He's after the World title in XCO, but could probably win the XCC title too, as his record is still better than anybody else, and he hasn't ridden an XCC World Cup since May 2021. Ten wins from twelve races says it all..... However, the XCO course is Crans-Montana is technical - he will surely need plenty of time back on the MTB, both training, and racing, otherwise it's going to be another doomed ambition.wipperman9526-03-2025
- Sweet. I wonder who's up on the next episode of Disgraced Ex-Doper Offers an Unsolicited Opinion?critguy26-03-2025
- well, paris-roubaix isn’t hilly AT ALL. it’s flat. the obstacle isn’t the hills it’s the cobbles, and what i’ve gathered over the years is that it’s almost impossible to imagine the beating that the body takes riding that course at race pace.OCexile26-03-2025