Brennan dominates tough sprint in Romandie: Visma | Lease a Bike's talent wins stage and takes the lead in the GC

After Samuel Watson won Tuesday's prologue, the riders faced their first road race on Wednesday. It promised to be a stage with the most challenging part in the middle, featuring the Mont-Crosin (2.3 km at 7.2%), the Col de Pontins (4.5 km at 7.6%), and the challenging climb to Chaumont (3 km at 11.9%). However, the top of that last climb was 80 kilometers from the finish line, followed by a relatively flat final phase. As soon as the riders approached the finish in Fribourg, the road would actually go up and down constantly, with a final kilometer at around 7%.

Three riders initially wanted to anticipate all these difficulties: Silvan Dillier (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Ben Zwiehoff (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), and Gerben Kuypers (Intermarché-Wanty). Not much later, Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl-Trek) and Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ) also joined the battle for the early breakaway, creating a leading group of five. The peloton was happy with this and let the five riders go. They gained a maximum lead of just over four minutes.

The race only got exciting again in the middle phase. At the front, Dillier was the first to drop his fellow breakaway riders, while Paleni suffered the same fate not much later. Zwiehoff saw that the other two breakaway riders were struggling on the uphill sections, so the German accelerated. He reached the top of the Col des Pontins alone, but Kuypers caught up with him shortly afterward. Ghebreigzabhier had also been dropped by then.

On the steep climb to Chaumont (3 kilometers at an average gradient of 11.9%), the race burst into action again. The peloton, which was now three minutes behind the leaders, saw a number of riders drop back. Among them were Jan Christen and Pavel Bittner, men who, on a good day, could certainly score in a stage like this. At the front, Zwiehoff left Kuypers behind, and the German came over the top solo.

Unfortunately for Kuypers, it was just after the summit that Zwiehoff caught him. The German had already secured the polka-dot jersey on Thursday with all his collected mountain points. INEOS Grenadiers and Visma | Lease a Bike took control of the peloton, gradually reducing the lead of the two riders at the front.

At the start of the final climb, the Zwiehoff-Kuypers duo had only half a minute's lead, and with 24 kilometers to go, it was game over for the pair. The peloton went into the tough finale in full force. Fortunately, a crash by Callum Scotson (Decathlon AG2R) and Asbjorn Hellemose (Jayco AlUla) at a strange moment did not cause any major disruptions.

The roads to Fribourg were constantly up and down but not too difficult. It was only in the last 2 kilometers that the climb became vicious. A series of constant bends accompanied this. INEOS Grenadiers had timed it perfectly and started the difficult final meters in the lead. However, leader Watson was nowhere to be seen, and Matthew Brennan stayed in a perfect position. He started the sprint from far away and was the strongest, easily winning. Thanks to his victory, he took the leader's jersey from Watson.