“It’s perfect. You couldn’t wish for a better start to the season" - Matthew Brennan continues to make breakthrough in 2025 with first pro win at Grand Prix de Denain
Cycling
For the first time in his professional career, Matthew Brennan has taken a win. At just 19 years of age, it's likely to be the first of many too, especially considering the impressiveness with which the Brit of Team Visma | Lease a Bike emerged victorious at Grand Prix de Denain on Thursday afternoon.
By 5km to go, an eight man lead group remained out front, with their advantage over the chasers still around 40 seconds. They were still together inside the final kilometre too, and in the sprint for the line, it was Brennan that powered to the win ahead of Gianni Vermeersch and Dries de Bondt.
“Really nice to win here. It’s something we really aimed for as a team and I’m really thankful for the work they did today,” Brennan said after his win. “It was a big group, and I knew that quite a lot of the boys wanted to attack. It was quite hard to manage it but coming to the finish I kind of knew that I had a faster sprint than probably most of the guys there. That gave me confidence coming into the final."
“It was tough positioning [on the cobbles], but it was kind of alright once you were there. You got into a rhythm, you come out the other side and then look back and it’s all in one line. I think we did really well as a team to keep me up there in good position and I really thank them for that today," the 19-year-old concludes. “It’s perfect. You couldn’t wish for a better [start to] the season, to be honest. I’m really happy.”
Read also
🇬🇧 19-year-old Matthew Brennan WINS the Grand Prix de Denain!
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) March 20, 2025
What a ride from the Visma-Lease a Bike rider to earn his first ever pro victory! 👏👏👏#GPDenain pic.twitter.com/wP3U4f7JjK
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- My issue is that this site proactively solicits the commentary of one disgraced doper after another. It's like they can't find anyone who didn't leave the sport under a cloud of shame. I think I'm done with this site.critguy26-03-2025
- 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