He’s been the breakthrough rider of the season. Matthew Brennan may only have just turned 20, but already in his first pro season with Visma-Lease a Bike, he’s claimed 11 elite wins, beating experienced WorldTour fields and some of the sport's best sprinters. Now he’s chasing another victory: his home stage race in the Lloyds Tour of Britain Men.
On a blustery afternoon by the Suffolk coast, the Brit led out team-mate Olav Kooij to claim stage one on Tuesday. His opportunities, he says, will come, as he plots out ambitions for the overall win on his race debut.
“It’d be nice to get a stage win, and then each day we’ll kind of just assess where we are on GC,” Brennan told Cycling Weekly. “If GC looks like an option, we’ll push for that.”
This June, the Visma-Lease a Bike rider earned a career-first stage race victory at the Tour of Norway, a four-day event where he won two stages, and twice finished second. The success came after a blistering start to the year, in which he won four races in a row, including a maiden WorldTour victory at the Volta a Catalunya.
Brennan arrives at the Tour of Britain from the Lidl Deutschland Tour, where he won two stages, outsprinting Tour de France green jersey winner Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) both times.
“It’s been a lot to take in,” the 20-year-old said of his season so far, “but it’s been really positive and it’s been really well managed by the team. They’ve done a really good job to make sure that I’m not pressured and that I’m in an environment [where] I can be really well supported in achieving my goals.”
What’s he expecting from his first Tour of Britain? “It’s going to be interesting,” he said. “The roads are a little bit different to in Europe – they’re a little bit narrower, a little bit more technical. Having grown up here, it’ll be good to have the knowledge of how to race on the UK roads, but I think it’s going to be fun, fast and exciting.”
That knowledge, he hopes, might give him an edge in the GC. Four of the race’s six stages have flat finishes that suit Brennan, though the punchier days – including the 5km climb to The Tumble on stage five – don’t put him off.
“We’ll give it a try. There’s no harm in trying, is there?” he said about his GC bid. “We’ll just see what happens. If I’m up there, I’m up there, if I’m not, oh well.”
