Vuelta a España Stage 2: Brennan Blitzes Sprint in Dazzling Grand Tour Debut

Matthew Brennan won stage 2 of the Vuelta a España on Sunday, putting in an astonishing sprint to triumph in what is his grand tour debut.

He was to the fore in the uphill sprint to the line in Manosque, easily beating Pau Miquel (Bahrain-Victorious), race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates-XRG), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and others.

The reduced peloton was distanced with 2km to go when Brennan’s teammate Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) leaped clear. Pogačar bridged up to him and when they stalled slightly, Alessandro Romele (XDS Astana) also got across.

However the chasing group wasn’t far behind and got up to them, with Brennan powering home to his first grand tour win.

“We started off with the ambition of Wout trying to get into the red jersey today,” the Briton explained. “We said there is a nice opportunity to attack in the final and Wout was really keen to do that.

“We had that plan and I was always going to be in the background to do the sprint in case that kind of sat up. That’s exactly what happened.

“The guys sat up in front and then Christophe [Laporte] did a great job in guiding me all the way through the hecticness of that. I am super happy to finish it off.”

Pogačar holds on at the top

Ethan Hayter had started the stage just 0.09 behind Pogačar and got involved in a long distance breakaway, aiming for the bonus seconds available at the day’s intermediate sprint. Van Aert was also in the running for the red jersey and his team chased, but Hayter was too strong and jumped clear of his four man group when the peloton drew closer.

The Soudal Quick-Step rider took the intermediate sprint with Van Aert leading the bunch across for second place, then sat up and went back to the group. However the energy expended saw him left short in the hilly finale, with Hayter finishing 31 seconds back and Pogačar holding red.

Van Aert remains nine seconds back but jumps six places to second overall, while Brennan leaps up to third. He is 10 seconds behind, with Léo Bisiaux (Decathlon CMA CGM) at 12.

“It was my plan to attack there,” Van Aert said of his surge with 2km to go. “I had a bit of too small a margin on Tadej so I waited a little bit on the top. Then when they didn’t want to give me a turn, I always knew that Matthew was there to do a sprint like this, where he is also amazing.

“That worked out really well. I am really proud of the boys today.”

A long-range gamble for the red jersey

Hayter was bitterly disappointed to lose the time trial on Saturday and put that frustration into action on stage 2. He bridged to breakaway Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla) and Diego Uriarte (Kern Pharma) 30km in, with Sinhué Fernandez (Burgos-Burpellet-BH) then getting across.

They built a gap of 1:42 and still had 1:05 with 60km remaining. Van Aert’s Visma Lease a Bike team was chasing hard, causing Hayter to go it alone 49km from the line, and 13 from the intermediate sprint.

He reached that prime line 29 seconds clear to clock up six bonus seconds, with Van Aert and Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) taking four and two seconds respectively.

Hayter’s bid for bonuses was done and he dropped back to the peloton, which backed off for a while but sparked into life again with 8km to go. Van Aert surged with 2km remaining and Pogačar was the only one able to bridge up to him. They stalled slightly and first Alessandro Romele (XDS-Astana) joined, then the rest of the depleted peloton did too.

Pogačar was prominent as the sprint unfolded but he and second-placed Pau Miquel had no answer to Brennan’s power. He’s just turned 21 and is taking big leaps forward in his career.