Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, so the marketing slogan emblazoned on my press pass tells me, is a race “where legends are born”. After this year’s edition, they just might be right.
On Sunday afternoon on the Brugsesteenweg, the long, straight road that dissects the West Flandrian town of Kuurne, Matthew Brennan cemented his status as one of cycling’s most exciting talents. Not just for the future, but right now.
With 150m to go, following a perfect lead-out from teammate Christophe Laporte, the 20-year-old from Darlington accelerated. And it was devastating – an electric, frenetic, violent burst of pure power and speed.
But by the finish line, where I was stood, straining to witness the explosion taking place on the road, everything was oddly calm.
As he raised one arm to the sky, it was like the world had slowed around Brennan, halted temporarily by the sheer ferocity of his sprint. For all the frenzy of his effort, Brennan was in total control. None of his rivals were even close.
It’s hard to overestimate the significance of Brennan’s emphatic victory in Kuurne on Sunday. Last year, during his staggeringly successful debut pro season, the 20-year-old proved he can win stages at some of the sport’s biggest week-long events. Now, he’s proved he can do it at the Belgian classics.
The Visma-Lease a Bike rider also became the youngest ever winner in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne’s 80-year history, and only the second Brit to triumph on the Brugsesteenweg, following in the wheel tracks of a certain Mark Cavendish, who won in 2012 and 2015. Not bad company, that.
Brennan’s first taste of Flemish classics success also ensured a positive end to what had been, until that point, a tumultuous Opening Weekend for both him and his Visma-Lease a Bike team. There were even doubts that the British rider would take to the start in Kortrijk, after crashing heavily on the approach to the Muur van Geraardsbergen during the previous day’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Omloop also proved a mixed bag for the rest of his team – minus an ill Wout van Aert – with Laporte forced to settle for fourth after being baulked on the Molenberg by poor Rick Pluimers’ teeth-smashing crash.
Which is why Visma sports director Grischa Niermann was particularly delighted by his squad’s positive, authoritative display during round two in Kuurne.
“It was great. We wanted to show ourselves at Opening Weekend,” Niermann told road.cc outside the Visma team bus after Brennan’s win on Sunday.
“We already had bad luck with Wout being out, and then at Omloop Matty crashed, Christophe was blocked at the most important point. He still finished fourth though, so we already saw a good team.
“And today we saw a really great team, that was present in every move, that made the race hard like we wanted. Matthew was super strong during the race and in the sprint. He got a great lead-out from Christophe and he just had to finish it off. But he also won by two lengths, which shows how he good he is.”
Brennan may have showed to the world how good he is at Opening Weekend – but what does his Kuurne performance tell us about his chances at the big cobbled monuments of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix (where he finished a very impressive 44th on debut last year) later in the spring? Quite a lot, reckons Niermann.
“I think he’s ready,” the German sports director says, when asked about Brennan’s preparations for his first full classics campaign.
“It was a great team effort, but Matthew showed he can also race. That’s what we want to see from him. Because in the future, if he wants to go for Flanders or Roubaix, he needs to have a lot of stamina and not only be a sprinter.
“In a race like today we’re confident if he has to go head-to-head against Milan and Philipsen after a fresh race, but we believe it’s better if the race has been hard, and that’s what we tried today. And it worked out perfectly.”
The hype around Brennan is real. But Niermann, nevertheless, is cautious when asked about just how far his team’s newest star can go.
“He dreams of winning the biggest classics, winning stages at the Tour de France, winning the green jersey,” he says.
“He can aim very high. But we also have to be careful with him. It doesn’t all have to happen this year or next year. He’s so young, he needs a few years to develop.
“For now, he’s already won a big race today, he won some very nice races last year. We’re happy, but we shouldn’t put too much pressure on him and expect him to follow Tadej at the Tour of Flanders, for example.”
In any case, Brennan’s development will be aided by the wealth of talent around him at Visma-Lease a Bike, which should in theory ease some of the pressure now being placed on his precocious, classic-winning shoulders.
“The best thing for us is that we have a lot of strong guys – Wout is back, Christophe is really good, Matty is good,” Niermann adds.
“But we also have guys like Timo Kielich, Axel Zingle, Per Strand Hagenes, they’ve showed themselves to be strong.
“And we need a very, very strong group if we want to succeed in the classics. But at least we’ve won one of them already. And it didn’t happen last year, so we are really happy with that.”
Legends may be born at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, the race organisers tell us, but Visma-Lease a Bike know their new star still has some growing up to do before he reaches the very top. Though I wouldn’t bet against Brennan experiencing another results growth spurt by the time we reach the Roubaix velodrome next month.
