Sprint review 2026: Magnier comes out on top as Milan rules the WorldTour and Brennan owns the Vuelta

Fifteen wins. That is Paul Magnier’s total for 2026, second only to Tadej Pogačar’s 22 in the whole peloton and more than any other sprinter. His Soudal Quick-Step teammate Tim Merlier was next with 14, so the Belgian team had the two most prolific sprinters of the season, with 29 wins between them.

The 22-year-old won from February to October. He started with two stages and the points jersey at the Volta ao Algarve and finished with two stages of the Tour of Guangxi. In all he won in ten different races, including the Muur Classic Geraardsbergen, Binche-Chimay-Binche, the Deutschland Tour, the Okolo Slovenska and the CRO Race.

His best three weeks came at the Giro d’Italia. Magnier won the opening stage in Burgas to take the first maglia rosa, then stage 3 in Sofia, then stage 18 into Pieve di Soligo, where he took the points jersey back from Jhonatan Narváez. He kept it to Rome, the only rider in this review to win a Grand Tour points classification. Mads Pedersen took green at the Tour and Wout van Aert the points jersey at the Vuelta.

Six of his wins came in WorldTour races. They included the Hamburg Cyclassics in August, where he survived the selection on the Waseberg that left Milan and Olav Kooij behind. Magnier finished 20th in the final UCI ranking with 2,452 points.

Milan won nine WorldTour races, more than any other sprinter. Three came at the UAE Tour in February, where he also took the points jersey, and three more on consecutive days at the Tour de Pologne in August. He also won the final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico and the opening stage of the Renewi Tour, as well as the Italian road title in Cuneo.

Three quarters of his 12 wins came at WorldTour level, against 40% for Magnier and 21% for Merlier.

The Giro was where the comparison turned. Milan was fourth behind Magnier in Burgas, second to him in Sofia and third behind Magnier and Edoardo Zambanini on stage 18. After that stage, Magnier had 195 points to Milan’s 103. Milan’s only win of the race came on the final day in Rome.

He also stopped winning early. He crashed while leading the Renewi Tour on the day after winning its opening stage, on 19 August, and did not win again.

Matthew Brennan won five stages of the Vuelta a España, matching Jonas Vingegaard at the Giro and Pogačar at the Tour for the most by any rider at a Grand Tour this year. The 21-year-old won stages 2, 5, 11, 16 and 17 on his Grand Tour debut, usually led out by Van Aert. Brennan also won Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne in March and three stages of the Flèche du Sud, for 12 wins in all.

Merlier won stages 7, 8 and 12 of the Tour de France, more than any other sprinter in the race. Kooij won the first bunch sprint of the Tour on stage 5, while Jasper Philipsen had to wait until stage 17. Merlier’s other 11 wins came below WorldTour level, including Scheldeprijs, three stages of the Tour de Hongrie and two stages of the Eneco Tour in October.

Philipsen won 10 times, seven of them at WorldTour level. He took Gent-Wevelgem in March and the Copenhagen Sprint in June, then won three stages and the overall at the Renewi Tour in August. His only Tour stage came in Voiron, and Pedersen beat him to the green jersey after Philipsen had cut the gap to seven points. He finished eighth in the final UCI ranking with 3,665.6 points, the highest of the riders in this review.

Tobias Lund Andresen won only three times, but all three were WorldTour wins and all came before mid-March. He won stage 1 of the Tour Down Under, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and stage 3 of Tirreno-Adriatico, where he beat Arnaud De Lie, Philipsen and Milan. He was later second at both Gent-Wevelgem and the Copenhagen Sprint, behind Philipsen each time.

Milan has the strongest WorldTour record of the group and Brennan had the best Grand Tour, but Magnier is the only one to win more than ten races, a Grand Tour points jersey and a WorldTour one-day race in the same season. He also beat Milan in the only Grand Tour they both rode.