Vuelta a Burgos: Matthew Brennan wins uphill sprint to Alto del Castillo on opening stage

Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) stormed to victory atop the Alto del Castillo on stage 1 of Vuelta a Burgos as the Dutch team dominated the opener, also finishing in second through Ben Tulett on the vicious final ramp.

The British Visma pair had their teammates pace for the majority of the 165-kilometre stage to bring back a four-rider breakaway, which was close – only catching them in the final 2km – but ultimately left them well positioned for the short but steep climb to the line in northern Spain.

Equipo Kern Pharma's Marc Brustenga tried to steal a march with 800 metres of the climb remaining, but quickly ran out of steam and was passed at high-speed by the charging bunch.

Tulett let Brennan into the final 200 metres, where the 20-year-old launched his final sprint, exploding away from his teammate and the rest to his sixth win of the season. Tulett held off Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) to confirm the 1-2 for the Dutch team.

The four-rider breakaway that led for most of the opening stage was made up of Josh Burnett (Burgos Burpellet BH), Javier Ibáñez (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Valentin Ferron (Cofidis), and Unai Aznar (Euskaltel-Euskadi), attacking 10km into the 165km stage.

Visma-Lease a Bike did most of the work to bring them back, but they were joined by Netcompany Ineos and Lidl-Trek on the front in the final 5km, with the four breakaways still 30 seconds up the road. This gap quickly disappeared in the final 2km, though, allowing the bunch to battle out the uphill sprint for victory.

"Happy, but also quite relieved. I think there's been a lot of hard work, and especially today, the team really showed they believed in me so that was really good to see and I'm really happy it paid off," said Brennan.

"We'll just start with Stevie Kruijswijk, he was out there all alone today, pretty much the whole day, pulling start to finish and then once he was done with a fantastic job keeping the break within distance, the other boys took over and really kept me in a place where I wasn't worried about the guys trying to come around me or anything like that.

"I hit the bottom of the climb in a really good position, and from there all the way up I was still supported – Ben was also there – and then I just had to hit it from the corner. I had a lot of faith in my sprint so I'm really happy it paid off."

The Vuelta a Burgos continues on Wednesday for stage 2, a more tricky climbing day which should be for the GC contenders to Pineda de la Sierra. Brennan should feature again later in the week, as he builds up for the Vuelta a España, where he will race alongside Wout van Aert.

"I'm not sure," he said, when asked what his expectations were for the remaining four stages of the race. "I came here with open ambitions, I didn't quite have the year I've wanted to have, but we went on training camp with all the boys, and we have the Vuelta in mind after this. I think our intentions are to keep to the main goals, try to win where possible, help the guys where possible, and if you can be more successful that's a bonus."

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