{"id":407016,"date":"2026-01-13T19:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407016\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T19:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:32:09","slug":"i-hope-to-play-a-significant-role-matthew-brennan-to-ride-tour-of-flanders-paris-roubaix-and-vuelta-a-espana-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407016\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I hope to play a significant role’ \u2013 Matthew Brennan to ride Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Brennan<\/a> will take aim at the \u201cbig Classics\u201d and make his Grand Tour debut in 2026, he and his Visma-Lease a Bike<\/a> team have announced.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old, who won a staggering 14 times in his first pro season last year, is down to ride three Monuments this year \u2013 Milan San-Remo<\/a>, the Tour of Flanders<\/a> and Paris-Roubaix<\/a> \u2013 before starting the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n

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Brennan was one of the standout talents of 2025, and earned Cycling Weekly\u2019s Male Rider of the Year award<\/a>. His win tally was bettered by just four other male pros: Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step<\/a>), Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step), and the world champion Tadej Poga\u010dar <\/a>(UAE Team Emirates-XRG).<\/p>\n

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\u201cI hope to reach the same level as last season, and ideally push even higher,\u201d Brennan said in a Visma-Lease a Bike press release<\/a> announcing his race calendar. \u201cFrom there, I hope to make my mark more and more in the bigger races, where I can hopefully play a meaningful role.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year I\u2019m focusing on the big classics, such as Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, and the Tour of Flanders. I hope to play a significant role in these races and gain experience in such big events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brennan made his WorldTour Classics debut at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad<\/a> last year, a race that is once again on his calendar in 2026. He was also called up late to ride Paris-Roubaix in his first pro season, and impressed on the cobbles<\/a>, riding in the company of Mathieu van der Poel <\/a>and Poga\u010dar at the front of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be nice to go a little bit further than last year, hopefully into the velodrome with the front group,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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The Brit will have to wait until August for his Grand Tour debut, planned for the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to it and curious to see how I\u2019ll handle it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to start in several major classics, but I\u2019m especially looking forward to La Vuelta. Riding three weeks of stages will be tough, and I don\u2019t yet know how my body will respond, but with good preparation and a strong team, I hope to achieve a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visma-Lease a Bike won the Vuelta through Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> last year. The Dane will not defend his title in 2026, and will turn his attention instead to the Giro d\u2019Italia and the Tour de France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brennan will open his season next week at the Tour Down Under in Australia, the first WorldTour event of the calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Brennan will take aim at the \u201cbig Classics\u201d and make his Grand Tour debut in 2026, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-407016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}