Brennan doubles up at the Vuelta: 21-year-old Briton takes second sprint win in Roquetes
Matthew Brennan made it two sprint wins from two chances at the 2026 Vuelta a España, taking stage five in Roquetes after a textbook team performance from Visma-Lease a Bike.
The 173.4-kilometre stage from Falset to Roquetes — the longest of this year's race — ended in a bunch sprint (the whole peloton arriving together), and 21-year-old Brennan powered home ahead of Jordi Meeus (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) and Vincenzo Albanese (EF Education–EasyPost) (The Guardian).
It is Brennan's second stage victory of his Grand Tour debut. He won stage two in Manosque three days earlier, beating Pau Miquel and Tadej Pogačar up an uphill sprint (Pez Cycling News). Two stages, two wins — and both times when the finish came down to raw speed.
Visma-Lease a Bike took control early on stage five and made sure the five-rider breakaway — Walter Calzoni, Stefan Küng, Mattia Gaffuri, Diego Uriarte and Fredrik Dversnes — was never given much room. The escapees were caught with roughly 100 kilometres still to ride after Lidl-Trek turned the screw at the front of the peloton, the main pack of riders (The Guardian).
Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) nipped in for maximum points at the intermediate sprint in Tivenys, but the real tension came later. Mads Pedersen, the Lidl-Trek fast man, was dropped on the category-three Puerto de Paüls climb — a blow for anyone hoping to see him contest the finish (The Guardian).
Inside the final two kilometres, Wout van Aert launched an attack that only Tadej Pogačar could follow. The pair opened a small gap but could not hold it, and the bunch regrouped for the sprint (Visma-Lease a Bike).
That set the stage for Visma's lead-out train — the sequence of riders who line up to deliver their sprinter at full speed. Van Aert and Christophe Laporte, two of the most experienced road men in the sport, peeled off in the final hundred metres and left their 21-year-old teammate to finish the job. He did.
In the overall standings — the GC, where every second of every stage counts toward a final champion — Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates XRG) still leads by 3 minutes 21 seconds. Stage five changed nothing at the top.
The win was Visma-Lease a Bike's 40th victory of the 2026 season, and Brennan now has seven wins to his name this year, according to the team's official profile (Visma-Lease a Bike). Not bad for a rider who, three weeks ago, had never started a three-week Grand Tour.
Stage six offers a different test entirely: 177.5 kilometres from Alcossebre to Castelló, with 3,080 metres of climbing on a medium-mountain route that should thin the field considerably. The sprinters will not have it their own way.
