Vuelta a España: Britain’s Matt Brennan leaves Pogacar in wake to win stage two

Matt Brennan emerged triumphant from a bunch sprint to claim victory in the second stage of the Vuelta a España, while overall favourite Tadej Pogacar retained the red jersey on Sunday.

Britain’s Brennan was followed over the line by Pau Miquel and Pogacar after a long 214.3km stage with over 3,000m of climbing, leaving Monaco and heading to Manosque in France. It is Brennan’s first stage win in a Grand Tour – “Hopefully it’s not the last one,” he said – in his first appearance at this level.

“We thought there ⁠was a nice opportunity to attack,” added Brennan, ​who joined the ​powerful Dutch Visma-Lease a ​Bike team’s World Tour squad in 2025. “I was ​super-happy ‌to finish it ​off.

“We started off with the ambition of Wout [van Aert] trying to get in the red jersey today. We had that plan and then I was always going to be in the background for the sprint in case that [didn’t work] … and that’s exactly what happened.”

Ethan Hayter, who was pipped by Pogacar in Saturday’s opening individual time-trial, was part of a four-man breakaway who led for much of the race, although the peloton never let them escape too far up the road. The British rider stayed in front to win the intermediate sprint and claim six bonus seconds. It gave him the chance to take Pogacar’s red jersey but he could not stay with the UAE Emirates rider on the slight uphill finish, with Pogacar clinging on to red.

The peloton during stage two of the Vuelta. Photograph: Tim de Waele/Getty Images

Wout van Aert made a move under two kilometres before the finish, with Pogacar following, but the peloton caught them, giving Visma-Lease A Bike’s Brennan the chance to claim the stage win. Hayter was dropped and came in 31 seconds behind Pogacar, who picked up four bonus seconds too for his third place.

Pogacar, a five-time Tour de France winner, is the overwhelming favourite to win the race and complete a Grand Tour career hat-trick. Only a huge shock will prevent him finishing the race in Granada on 13 September as the ninth rider to pull off the feat and just the fourth to do a Tour-Vuelta double in the same season.

On Monday’s third stage, the riders head 174km from Gruissan to Font-Romeu for the race’s first high-altitude fiinish. Pogacar will start the stage with a nine-second cushion over Van Aert in the general classification, with Brennan in third.