Visma | Lease a Bike takes it easy with Matthew Brennan: "He was balancing on a very thin line"

Matthew Brennan returns to competition this month with Visma | Lease a Bike, but the team does not yet know the exact timing. Visma | Lease a Bike plans to take it easy with the Brit, who came out of the classics 'extremely tired'.

Brennan started the 2026 classics season very strong with a win in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne. Afterwards, the just 20-year-old rider fell ill, forcing him to drop Milan-San Remo from his schedule. At the end of March, Brennan returned to racing at In Flanders Fields, after which he was still able to finish the spring season normally with Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders, and Paris-Roubaix.

In those races, he was good enough to support the team, but (still) not strong enough to play a role in the finale himself. “The illness he contracted during preparation for San Remo has haunts him throughout the year,” says Mathieu Heijboer. “That was a major setback for us, as he had really prepared for the key races like San Remo, Flanders, and Roubaix.”

“Of course, he showed in Kuurne what he is capable of, but the spring season did not bring what we had hoped for him. Matthew really suffered during that period. He was extremely tired without the base he needed. He was balancing on a fragile line.”

And so Brennan is now building up very slowly towards his next goals. “The comeback is possibly planned for May in France, but we are not yet sure exactly which race that will be. We are taking it easy,” says the Head of Performance.

On Thursday, a major interview with Head of Performance Mathieu Heijboer will appear on WielerFlits. In it, he looks back on the spring season and goes deeper into the developments of Wout van Aert and Per Strand Hagenes.