Matthew Brennan responds to comparisons to Wout Van Aert and Mark Cavendish: "I take it as a compliment, but I should focus on myself"

Matthew Brennan broke onto the professional scene like a hurricane, winning stages at Volta a Catalunya and Tour de Romandie like it was his daily bread. Considering that the young Brit is yet to turn 20, many already compare him to greats of cycling world such as Mark Cavendish or Brennan's Visma | Lease a Bike teammate Wout Van Aert.

"If people want to compare me to them, that's fine. I take it as a compliment," Brennan told Het Nieuwsblad. "But I shouldn't do that, I should focus on myself. If I want to achieve something, I have to follow my own plan and build my own career."

It's a honour, but Brennan is not quite there just yet. "I'm not Wout van Aert, I'm not Mark Cavendish. They also each followed their own path. And it is very clear that I am nowhere near those two. I think I am also just different. Cavendish didn't win a stage with 3,000 climbing metres, for example. And Van Aert has a much bigger engine than I do."

Brennan started the season with victories at small French 1.2 races before going on to win also the 1.Pro race GP de Denain. This result catapulted Brennan into Visma's Classics lineup as a replacement for Christophe Laporte. And eventually even towards Paris-Roubaix debut.

"After Denain, I got a message from Mathieu Heijboer. He's Head of Performance of the team, but not my coach, and so normally not the person I often have contact with," Brennan told the story behind his Monumental debut. "'Call me back tonight,' he sent... All day I was asking myself what he wanted from me. Or had I done something wrong? Fortunately, not."

And he certainly didn't disappoint, surviving at the front deep into the Hell of the North. "When I passed Wout, I was just thinking how I could best serve the team," Brennan said. "I felt good, so it was my job to take on a bit more responsibility. I have already learned a lot from Wout, who is really a textbook example of how to do things as a professional cyclist."

He explains: "On the morning of Paris-Roubaix, I went knocking on his room door. I asked him: 'Wout, what should I expect from the next few hours?' He went over the tactics again, gave me a lot of valuable tips and believed I could still be there in the final. That put me at ease anyway."

Brennan put his name out there for the first time in juniors when he broke the junior individual pursuit world record in 2023. In additon to IP, he's also become junior world champion in madison with Ben Wiggins that year. And the Brit doesn't hide that he'd love to return to track at some point in the future. But now there are even more exciting goals ahead of him on the road.

"The Tour of Flanders," he declared as the one race he wishes to win. After a bit of thinking, he also quickly adds another one: "And a stage in the Tour de France, specifically the one in 2027, with the Grand Départ in the UK."

"I haven't told the team that they must definitely include me in the selection, but I have indicated that it is one of my big goals. I want to work towards that, without putting pressure on myself. If I don't make it, I'll be OK with that, too."