Matthew Brennan looked untouchable as he romped to a fourth victory in this year’s Vuelta a España, on stage 16.
After a final five kilometres that looked calmer than any sprint finale has any right to, Brennan’s win almost looked like a formality, as Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Wout van Aert guided him towards the finish line with a deluxe lead out that pulled the Briton out of the front of the bunch.
The 21-year-old, who has also won stages 2, 5 and 11, finished two bike lengths ahead of second placed Bryan Coquard (Cofidis).
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Speaking afterwards, Brennan admitted he was already dreaming about wearing yellow in next year’s Tour de France, which starts in the UK.
“A UK start next year, I already said it to the team two years ago when I heard about it, that I’d really like to be there on the start line,” he said. “And to have guys like Wout and Christophe [Laporte] there also, if we do the same [as we do] here, we can really try to copy what we do and replicate that into a yellow jersey on day one.”
Maillot jaune dreams aside, he insisted that today’s in win in La Rábida Palos de la Frontera felt just as good as his victory on stage two, saying, “It’s unbelievable. Four victories here, the plan was for one. As a team we’ve won six. I think. I can’t count, we’ve won so many.
“The stages that we’ve gone for we’ve really committed to the plan that we had,” he said. “You’ve seen the boys all day today, they’ve been pushing so much wind, and to finish it off like that, Wout bringing me across the line, basically in a perfect place in such a chaotic final, it was perfect.”
Asked whether Van Aert was the best lead out man in the world he said, “Yeah, I don’t really think you can compete. It was a real shame that we lost Christophe, but it’s still unbelievable what we can do when we’re a man down in these type of situations.”
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