Visma reveal plans to fast track Matthew Brennan's development: “That was not on his schedule either"
Cycling
After a stunning victory on the opening stage of the Volta a Catalunya, Matthew Brennan is no longer just a promising name for the future, he’s very much a part of the present. The 19-year-old Team Visma | Lease a Bike rider has impressed so much that the team is now making significant adjustments to his race programme for the rest of the season.
Initially, Brennan was due to spend much of the year racing with the development squad in .2-level events, gaining experience and mileage at a steady pace. However, his explosive debut in the WorldTour has forced a rethink.
“We will probably only use him in WorldTour and ProSeries races from now on,” said Head of Development Robbert de Groot to Rouleur. “That was not on his schedule either. But because Jonas Vingegaard did not reach that race, we decided to test Matthew's level there. If you win the first stage straight away, then that went very well of course.”
The team is now looking to move the young Briton up the ladder much faster than anticipated. “Now we have said that we will no longer use a rider in .2 races, if he already has a WorldTour victory to his name and has also finished second twice. He will now ride the Tours of Romandie and Norway.”
While the team is understandably excited, there is also a note of caution. Brennan’s 2025 calendar is being developed carefully, balancing ambition with realistic development goals.
“We are still working with him on a trial-and-error basis,” De Groot continued. “Because what kind of results can we expect from Matthew in a race like Romandie? Can he also work as a domestique for other riders in certain races? That is the challenge for us to find out. But it is no secret that he is someone who can finish tough races.”
His rise has even caught the attention of Grischa Niermann, who highlighted Brennan’s maturity and potential beyond his years. “Certainly for someone who is 19 years old,” Niermann told Wielerflits. “But let me put it this way: in the future, we have someone with Matthew who we are going to enjoy a lot in these types of races.”
While the temptation to throw Brennan into a Grand Tour is surely there, the team is resisting it, for now. “In principle, we are sticking to his original plan with the Volta NXT Classic, a bit of rest and then Romandie. Don’t expect a Grand Tour this year either. But it is incredible what he showed in Catalunya straight away. He has a great future and we are very, very happy that he is riding with us.”
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- i wouldn't count Pogi out. Low probability of a win, but not impossiblemobk01-04-2025
- Right now it doesn't seem that his legs are there or that his head is in the racevappaxbipmv01-04-2025
- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Oh, the impossibility of this kind of comparison. A pre-WW2 Binda had amazing statistics, and that was one era. During what I think of as the romantic era, Poulidor had an incredible run at the Tour without winning, and Bobet won some grand tours and some Monuments. In this modern era (for me: after Hinault), we've had multiple Monument winners win a grand tour (such as Valverde and Kelly, with Kelly the better rider in general), and then we've got someone like Roglic, the true GC rider. Sure there was a Monument that was kind of a fluke (both Pogacar and Hirschi might have won, and twitchy Alaphilippe deserved relegation), but what matters are the 5 grand tours and all these wins across the 1 week GC races except for the Tour de Suisse (you'd think he'd race it to get the set of them all). In this era, since 2000 or so, maybe he meets the description as best non-Tour winner. How many GC riders have these wins and not the Tour? To compare to other eras really is not possible. He's his own unique rider, and it's been amazing watching him for the past many years. That's about all we can say.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025
- I don't think I would ever count Wout van Aert out of a race if his head is in it. He is a serious talent.awp01-04-2025
- He's a great rider for sure, not sure if he the best to never win the Tour though.awp01-04-2025
- Hard to imagine that his confidence - that imperious flow state that great athletes operate in - hasn't been affected. But that is a different dynamic than the one you described. He has not become hesitant because he is fixated on his rival. He has suffered multiple traumatic injuries, and I have no doubt he is still 1% off both mentally and physically as a result. Football (both kinds) and basketball players who blow out knees go through a predictable cycle in which they are reluctant to do max efforts even after their doctors have cleared them. I myself went though a small version of that after a back injury. It's just hard once you no longer know where the line is. We saw in his TT a couple weeks ago that he still has power, and for all the hand wringing he is still finishing in the top 10-20 of big races. But as we have seen with others, getting *all* the way back is not assured. I'm not ready to say he is done, but few riders who have been hurt as often and as badly as him remain at the top.MidnightRider01-04-2025