After bringing Tudor Pro Cycling and himself a maiden Grand Tour stage win at the Vuelta a España, Marco Brenner admitted that he "always knew" he was capable of results like this; he just needed everything to fall into place.
But it's the exact opposite of that which Brenner had to endure in the opening week of his third Grand Tour, suffering from illness and then crashing, plunging his chances of pulling off a performance as he did up to Sierra de la Pandera on Saturday into serious doubt.
Brenner had arrived at the start of the Vuelta as one of the young riders threatening to break through fully at the highest level, fresh off the back of his first WorldTour GC victory at the Tour of Poland. He may have had to wait for his body to recover, but it was worth the wait as he added to that success with the biggest win of his career.
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"With the victory in Poland, we came here with high expectations, but during the first week I was quite sick; I had quite a strong cold, then I also crashed, unfortunately, and I really had to recover first," said the German in his post-race press conference.
"But today it worked out and was amazing. For sure, so far it's the best part of my career with Poland and now winning a Grand Tour stage."
Brenner would have known the slopes of the final climb, after all, he raced them the last time Sierra de La Pandera's brutal but stunning ascent featured in the Vuelta back in 2022.
While he had shown promise by finishing fifth on a stage to Peñas Blancas, on the day to Pandera two stages later he finished 99th, crossing the line almost 20 minutes after Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) had won the stage.
Having come through as a top teenage talent, Brenner turned pro with DSM at 19 in 2021, then made his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a year later. Asked in his press conference by a German journalist about how the perception was that he'd never quite reached the potential he'd perhaps promised, Brenner burst out laughing.
"I love this question," he said, admitting how assured he was that a day like today would come. "I mean, for me, I always knew that if everything comes together, I can do quite good results.
"I will never be the guy to stand here and say I will win WorldTour races or whatever. First, it was really nice to win in Poland, and also here to win the stage, but I don't think I should put expectations out there; I'm just happy with how it goes.
"Of course I know now – and a lot of people know now – that when everything comes together, I can also win some big races."
Tudor played the 45-man breakaway that went away on stage 14 perfectly, getting three of their best climbers, Brenner, Larry Warbasse and Will Barta, all up the road to play out the final climb.
As several attacks split the leading group, it became clear that Brenner and King of the Mountains leader Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) were the strongest climbers, but the battle lasted all the way to the line after 12km of hitting each other with attacks.
Buitrago tried to steal a march under the 1km to go flamme rouge, but Brenner had the kick to respond, despite having just taken his hands off the bars to adjust something. Storming back to the Colombian's wheel, Brenner took the lead into the twisty corners of the finale, and surged to the line for victory, still with enough wherewithal to do up his jersey and delight his sponsors.
"Today we started, and we knew there was a good chance that it would be a breakaway day. The team was also saying we should try to go in with more of the kind of riders who suit the finish, me, Larry and Will, and it was really a perfect scenario with all three of us present," said Brenner.
"Today I felt quite good. The other day in the break I was not really feeling 100%, so I told the team, and they did a really good job to control on the last climb and in the final I could put myself in a position to try and win the race.
"You live for days like today, I guess. There’s not many cyclists who achieve a stage win within a Grand Tour, and to add this to my palmarès is really amazing."
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