British teenager Matthew Brennan won his second stage at the Volta a Catalunya.
The 19-year-old Visma-Lease a Bike rider beat Dutch cyclist Tibor del Grosso (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in a close sprint, finishing stage five in three hours, 28 minutes, and 14 seconds.
Brennan had already won the first stage of the race in an exciting sprint, marking his first World Tour victory.
Stage five covered 172km and suited sprinters, with only one major climb. However, strong winds made the final 20km more challenging.
“We worked hard all day and knew the finish would be chaotic,” Brennan said. “The whole team was there at the end, and we were in a great position. I’m so happy I could finish it for them.”
Spain’s Juan Ayoso (UAE Team Emirates XRG) remains the overall leader, but Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) is now just one second behind. Another Spanish rider, Enric Mas, is 21 seconds back in third place.
Stage six, the second-to-last day, will take riders into the mountains for a 159km challenge.
Elsewhere on Friday, Mathieu van der Poel won the E3 Saxo Classic in Belgium for the second year in a row.
The Dutch Alpecin–Deceuninck rider made a solo attack 38km from the finish, winning his third race of the season. He crossed the line over a minute ahead of Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen, while Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) finished nearly two minutes behind.
Stage 5 Winner of Volta a Catalunya
- Matthew Brennan (GB/Team Visma-Lease a Bike) 3hrs 28mins 14secs
- Tibor del Grosso (Ned/Alpecin-Deceuninck) Same time
- Pavel Bittner (Cze/Team Picnic PostNL) Same time
- Marjin van den Berg (EF Education-Easypost) Same time
- Corbin Strong (NZ/Israel-Premier Tech) Same time
- Axel Laurance (Fra/Ineos Grenadiers) Same time
- Dorian Godon (Fra/Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) Same time
- Nico Denz (Ger/Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) Same time
- Antonio Fagundez Lima (Uru/Burgos-Burpellet-BH) Same time
- Juan Ayuso (Spa/AE Team Emirates-XRG) Same time
General classification after stage five
- Juan Ayuso (Spa/AE Team Emirates-XRG) 22hrs 23mins 03secs
- Primoz Roglic (Slo/Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) +1sec
- Enric Mas (Spa/Movistar) +21sec
- Mikel Landa (Spa/Soudal-QuickStep) +22sec
- Lenny Martinez (Fra/Bahrain Victorious) +28sec