{"id":451270,"date":"2026-02-01T08:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451270\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T08:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T08:38:09","slug":"cheeky-dane-leaves-brennan-and-visma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451270\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheeky Dane leaves Brennan and Visma"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Australian early-season block is over. The Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race provided the final act Down Under, and Tobias Lund Andresen<\/a> \u2014 now riding for Decathlon CMA CGM<\/a> \u2014 is already proving his worth with a second win of the season, once again getting the better of Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The riders faced 182 kilometres around the Australian city of Geelong, with the Challambra Crescent tackled four times in the finale: 1.1 kilometres at an average of 8.5%. Not exactly straightforward. On a course like that, you would usually expect chances for attackers, but the break never got much room.<\/p>\n

Jayco AlUla and Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> controlled the early move from the start. With last year\u2019s winner Mauro Schmid and Matthew Brennan<\/a>, both teams had major cards to play for the victory. Once the break was brought back, attacks came from all angles \u2014 including from Santiago Buitrago<\/a> (Bahrain Victorious) \u2014 but after the final ascent, a group of around 20 riders remained.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"tobias-lund-andresen\"\/<\/p>\n

Andresen crossed the line cheering during the first stage of the Tour Down Under<\/p>\n

Brennan & Andresen: the stand-out names of the Australian blockMatthew Brennan<\/a> (Visma | Lease a Bike) already won a stage at the Tour Down Under<\/a>, and in Geelong the young Brit repeatedly shut down moves in the final lap. That meant he was the first to open the sprint \u2014 and afterwards he admitted he\u2019d misjudged it. \u201cI had the legs to respond to the accelerations every time, but unfortunately I launched my sprint about a hundred metres too early. That was a misjudgement,\u201d Brennan said via his team\u2019s channels<\/a>.His Tour Down Under rival Tobias Lund Andresen<\/a> won the opening stage<\/a> of that race, finished on the podium three more times, and took the points classification \u2014 and the young Dane backed it up in the one-day race named after Australia\u2019s greatest rider.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo<\/p>\n

\"matthew-brennan-3\"\/<\/p>\n

Matthew Brennan and Visma | Lease a Bike failed to win<\/p>\n

Andresen sprints to victory \u2014 and \u201csounds like a girl\u201d<\/p>\n

With 300 metres to go, Andresen was sitting third wheel. He came around Francesco Busatto (Alpecin-Premier Tech), landed straight onto Brennan\u2019s wheel, then powered past with clear speed \u2014 celebrating as he crossed the line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you could hear the sound, I would sound like a girl, because I was super happy,\u201d Andresen said immediately afterwards at the press moment. He wasn\u2019t entirely sure the race would suit him beforehand either: \u201cI felt really good, but it\u2019s always a bit 50\/50 in this race. If it\u2019s full gas all day, it\u2019s probably a bit too hard for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read on after the sprint!<\/p>\n

Decathlon CMA CGM teamwork delivers the winWhile Decathlon CMA CGM<\/a> have gone all-in on sprinting this season, they are already being rewarded early thanks to Andresen. Originally brought in as a lead-out option for Olav Kooij, he was given the finishing role in Australia \u2014 and he thanked his teammates afterwards. \u201cI dropped out of the peloton a couple of times, but thanks to the support of the guys I made it back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the final lap, Andresen felt the win might be on: \u201cWith one lap to go, I said that if the team delivered me in the perfect position, I knew I was going to win the race.\u201d With 100 metres remaining, he came past Brennan to take victory in the first WorldTour one-day race of 2026.<\/p>\n

Results Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian early-season block is over. The Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race provided the final act Down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,173901,784,221838,63787,173900,85,51866,233095,23372],"class_list":["post-451270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bahrain-victorious","tag-cycling","tag-decathlon-cma-cgm","tag-matthew-brennan","tag-santiago-buitrago","tag-sports","tag-team-jayco-alula","tag-tobias-lund-andresen","tag-visma-lease-a-bike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}