Fast rising British teenager Matthew Brennan claimed his first professional GC win in style at the Tour of Norway by winning the final sprint.
The 19-year-old Visma-Lease a Bike rider played a canny game in the finale of the race to deny Norwegian Alexander Kristoff a win on home soil before he retires at the end of the season.
Brennan didn’t benefit from a dedicated lead-out from his Visma-Lease a Bike team and had to find his way to the front in the closing meters. As Kristoff opened up the sprint Brennan jumped out off compatriot Ethan Vernon’s wheel and used the slipstream of Kristoff’s lead-out man Rasmus Tiller to slingshot up the inside. He beat the Uno-X leader by around half a bike length.
Speaking after the stage he said: “It was close. It was tricky heading into the final, I got barged out of the way a few times, which is fine, but I knew I had to be in a certain position or I’d be out of a chance of winning.
“I knew it was big headwind along here [the finishing straight] and just used the guys to come through at the last minute. Kristoff was fast he put up a good fight… I knew it was very close but I just had a feeling that I had the edge on him.”
The young rider, who now has more wins than any other pro so far this season with ten, was keen to praise his team-mates. “In the last 5km everyone went full, no one had anything left,” he said.
Brennan took the leaders jersey on stage two of the four stage race when he won the sprint into Oltedal. This is his first general classification win of his young professional career having stepped up the World Tour team from Visma’s development squad at the start of the season.
He said: “It’s really nice. It’s my first professional GC win so I’m always going to remember this one. The way we all performed this week was top class I couldn’t have done any of this without the boys being here at every moment.”
The Darlington-born racer didn’t finish outside the top two on any of the race’s four stages but was pipped to the top spot on stage one by Storm Ingebrigtsen (Coop-Repsol) and Maxim Van Gils (Red Bull-Bora-Hangrohe) on stages one and three respectively.
Brennan is next due to race at Dwars door het Hageland on Saturday 14 June.
