Matthew Brennan thunders to fifth Vuelta victory in Seville

Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike) landed his fifth victory of the Vuelta a España after producing another rasping sprint in Seville on stage 17.

The Briton left his effort late this time around, but it produced a familiar result as he came through to claim an emphatic victory ahead of Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility).

Wout van Aert again guided Brennan through the finale, this time opting to perch his Visma teammate on the wheel of Cort in the finale.

A strong Uno-X Mobility train led into the finishing straight, and Cort struck out from distance in the sprint, but Brennan was in prime position, and he duly unfurled a crisp finishing sprint.

Enric Mas (Movistar) finished in the peloton to retain his overall lead of 2:06 ahead of Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) ahead of the crucial 32.5km time trial to Jerez de la Frontera on stage 18. 

The 185km run to Seville always looked destined to finish in a bunch sprint and with a time trial and two severe mountain stages to come, there wasn’t enormous appetite for the day’s early break. The unpromising odds didn’t dissuade Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ United) and Sinuhé Fernandez (Burgos Burpellet BH) from escaping early on, however, and they would build a lead of four minutes within the first 20km of racing.

Visma | Lease a Bike and Cofidis were on policing duty in the peloton and initially brought the gap down to three minutes. Neither team, however, wanted to reel in the escapees too quickly, and so Paleni and Fernandez stretched their lead out to a maximum of five minutes by the midpoint before it began to contract once again.

The GC contenders were parked in the front positions of the peloton for much of the run towards Seville, but there would be no real frissons among the general classification contenders despite the risk of echelons on the exposed roads.

The two escapees entered the final 40km still armed with a lead of 2:20 over the peloton. The direction of travel seemed evident as the bunch trundled towards Seville with Steven Kruijswijk upping the ante for Visma.

Paleni and Fernandez had 1:17 in hand on the peloton as they came through the intermediate sprint with 20km to go, where Coquard beat Van Aert for third place.

With 15km remaining and with the gap dropping to just over a minute, Paleni decided to press on alone, but with Cofidis and Visma now ramping up the pace in earnest behind, it was clear that his was a doomed effort.

Paleni still had 40 seconds as he entered the final 10km and the Frenchman continued to fend off the bunch through the streets of Seville, though he was fighting a losing battle by the time he crossed the bridge over the mighty Guadalquivir. He was swept up with 3km to go, as Uno-X Mobility took up the reins and began to lay the ground for the inevitable bunch sprint.