Tour de Romandie: Matthew Brennan dominates bunch sprint for stage 1 victory, moves into race lead

Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) sped to victory on stage 1 of the Tour de Romandie, coming out on top in a mass sprint finish on the uphill run to the line in Fribourg.

The British neo-pro scored the third WorldTour win of his career with ease, jumping from second wheel inside the closing 200 metres and crossing the line several bike lengths ahead of second place.

Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) took second place some way behind Brennan, while Artem Shmidt (Ineos Grenadiers) rounded out the podium.

Brennan, who finished the prologue in 15th place, seven seconds down on stage winner Sam Watson (Ineos Grenadiers), now vaults into the race lead thanks to the 10-second time bonus for the stage 1 victory.

He now leads his countryman by three seconds heading into stage 2. Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) lies third overall with the same time as Watson, while Shmidt moves up to fourth overall at five seconds down.

"I think once we got over the climb, we knew we had good legs, and we could pull towards the end. I think the guys did a really nice position pulling me into the early parts and keeping me out of trouble," Brennan said after the finish.

"Coming into the final, I managed to follow some wheels. It was quite chaotic and a pretty tricky finish. We had to use a lot of legs, but we got it in the end.

"It was, as I say, very chaotic, and when you really are fighting to find that wheel, it’s a pretty big challenge. But I managed to find it, and I actually got a little bit further ahead than I maybe thought I would, but in those moments, you have to react to the situation and keep going

"It’s special. Again, coming into this race, we really wanted to achieve something and to finally come out with it, me and the team are so happy.

"Winning another stage would always be nice and hopefully we’ll support Jørgen [Nordhagen] into the GC battle on the hilly stages. I am really looking forward to the next few days."

How it unfolded

The first road stage of the 2025 Tour de Romandie would take the riders on the first major climbs of the race, bringing them on a 194km ride from Münchenstein to Fribourg.

The stage took in four classified climbs, including the second-category Col de Pontins (4.5km at 7.2%), though the final 60km was run over largely flat roads, besides the uphill kick to the finish.

Attacks from the start saw the break form early on as Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), and Gerben Kuypers (Intermarché-Wanty) jumped off the front. Shortly afterwards, a counter by Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl-Trek) and Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ) brought the number of riders out front to five.

As Ineos Grenadiers, Picnic-PostNL, and Visma-Lease A Bike settled in to lead the pacemaking at the head of the peloton, the breakaway built their lead up over four minutes.

Kuypers led Zwiehoff over the day’s first climb, the third-category test at Grindel (2.3km at 6.5%) after 28km. He’d do the same at Mont-Crosin (2.3km at 7.2%) 63km later to build a four-point (10 to 6) lead at the top of the mountain classification.

The hardest climb of the day, the Col de Pontins, would follow just past the midway mark of the stage, after 102km, and there it was Zwiehoff who led the way.

Dillier was dropped on the way up, while Zwiehoff led solo at the front with Ghebreigzabhier and Kuypers following. The order across the top shifted the mountain classification rankings 16 to 14 in Zwiehoff’s favour, with one climb left on the stage.

On that third-category climb of Chaumont (3km at 11.9%) which peaked with 76km to go, Zwiehoff once again went solo at the front. The German put 30 seconds into Kuypers on the way up, extending his mountain classification lead with 26 points to the Belgian’s 20.

Further back, the remainder of the breakaway riders lay over two minutes down, with the peloton at 3:20 off the lead, fast hoovering up the dropped riders. Kuypers would rejoin Zwiehoff on the flat following the descent, racing on despite the peloton closing in.

The pair raced into the final 60km of the day with a 1:30 advantage on the Ineos- and Visma-led peloton.

That gap wouldn’t last, however, as the pace behind went up as the finish line neared. At 30km to go, just 40 seconds separated the groups, though that margin was swept away swiftly afterwards as Kuypers and Zwiehoff were brought back 25km from home.

From there, a sprint for the finish was assured as the teams hoping to contest the final flowed to the front. It was Soudal-QuickStep who took charge heading into Fribourg, leading the way down the 2km descent heading into the closing kilometres before the final run to the line.

Ineos Grenadiers were next to take over, lining up with a concerted team effort in the final 2km. No single team controlled the situation in the final kilometre, however, although the red jerseys of Ineos and Arkéa-B&B Hotels were present.

In the end, it was a man in yellow, Brennan, who profited from the lead outs. He surfed an Arkéa wheel before launching into the wind. The 19-year-old had few rivals in the dash to the line as his initial acceleration separated himself from the rest with ease.

Results

Results powered by FirstCycling