Vuelta a España Stage 5: Brit Sensation Matthew Brennan Goes 2-for-2 in Reduced Sprint

Matthew Brennan proved Wednesday at the Vuelta a España he’s definitely the fastest kid on the block.

The 21-year-old Brit made it look easy in the reduced sprint finish of stage 5 of La Vuelta after he saw a royal Visma-Lease a Bike leadout from Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte.

Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Vincenzo Albanese (EF Education EasyPost) rounded out the podium but barely got a look-in after what was a sprint masterclass from the “Killer Bees.”

Brennan is now 2-for-2 in the Vuelta’s fast finishes after he also dominated the grinding uphill kick on Sunday’s second stage.

Not bad for a grand tour rookie.

“This is better than a normal day job,” he joked at the finish. “It’s fantastic. Second one in the bag, first grand tour.”

However, unlike Brennan’s victory over the likes of Tadej Pogačar and Mads Pedersen on Sunday, his win Wednesday was only a matter of execution.

After Pedersen was dropped in the hilly final, Visma-Lease a Bike was in pole position for the flat finish.

“The leadout was pretty spot-on,” Brennan said in his winner’s interview. “Wout and Christophe are probably some of the best guys you can have in the world for this type of thing. They supported me all the way into the final.”

Tadej Pogačar and all the GC favorites finished safe in the bunch after a technical final to the stage in Spain’s Tarragona region.

Pogi remains in red for another day, and there were no changes in positions or time gaps on GC.

Van Aert sacrifices his chances for Brennan

Brennan came into this Vuelta a España as one of the hottest talents in the peloton. He’s been likened to Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan, and even Van Aert.

Visma-Lease a Bike clearly has so much faith in its long-term signed wunderkind it even made Van Aert a superdomestique.

Van Aert said at the finish there was no question about sprint leadership in a smaller bunch kick like the one that eventuated on Wednesday.

“When you have Matthew there in a group like that, he’s the best card to play,” he said. “I don’t even need to see the replay to know how he finished that off.”

The Vuelta finds a rare flat finish in Spain

The Vuelta a España finally reached Spain on Wednesday’s fifth stage with the first of two back-to-back sprinter-adjacent stages. With only 1,700m climbing across the 174km course, Wednesday’s stage across Tarragona was by far the easier of the two.

But it wasn’t entirely straightforward for fast-finishers looking to capitalize on a rare flat finish.

The majority of the day’s climbing was wedged into the final 60km of the stage.

The hardest ascent of the day peaked out just 25km from the line to put a nasty sting into the sprinters’ legs before the flat run toward the finish line.

Pedersen pops after UAE acceleration

A token breakaway of four went early, but Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike weren’t risking anything in a stage raked by crosswinds. They wanted this stage to be for Wout, Matthew, and Mads.

Lidl-Trek continued to make its intentions clear when the break was caught. The team mobbed to the front to briefly split the race into echelons in the hopes of distancing Brennan and Van Aert.

But the race came back together, and the peloton collectively cooled its jets ahead of the hard final 60km.

The stage began to wake on the steep final climb of the day at 30km to go. But it wasn’t a sprint team that rang the alarm bell.

UAE Emirates-XRG piled on at the front of the stage’s final ascent — a steep, narrow goat-track Cat.3 — to keep Pogačar safe.

Surprisingly, pre-stage contender Pedersen was one of the first to pop after UAE turned up the tempo. And that left Visma-Lease a Bike in pole position for the flat final 20km to the line.

Van Aert, Brennan, and Laporte were all in the reduced peloton, and their big Danish rival was dropped.

The Dutch team only had to make sure they finished it off — and they did.

Vuelta a España stage 5 results: