'He was able to make it to the team car under his own power' - Yet more misfortune for Visma-Lease a Bike as Matthew Brennan abandons Omloop Nieuwsblad

It has not been the start to a season that most have come to expect from Dutch men’s super-team Visma-Lease a Bike, and things got worse for the squad at Omloop Nieuwsblad as young British sprinter Matthew Brennan pulled-out after falling heavily with 19km to go.

Brennan had been talked-up ahead of the race as the team’s leader following Wout van Aert’s withdrawal due to illness, but the 20-year-old was one of several riders in the chasing group to come down in greasy conditions on the approach to the Muur van Geraardsbergen. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) went on to win the race in dominant fashion, with Visma-Lease a Bike’s Christophe Laporte crossing the line in fourth.

Brennan is said to have been able to make it to the team car “under his own power” following the fall, but withdrew from the race. The team has not yet released a more detailed update on his condition at the time of writing.

From a results perspective, it has been one of the team’s poorest starts to a season for several years. Visma-Lease a Bike currently sit 11th in the UCI ranking and have won two races in 2026 - one of them courtesy of Brennan. That’s half the number from 2025 at this same point and down from nine in 2024 and seven in 2023.

The team’s leader for the Tour de France, Jonas Vingegaard, is yet to pin a number on this year having pulled out of the UAE Tour following a crash after being followed by a fan on a training ride. The 2022 and 2023 Tour de France winner is set to open his season at Paris-Nice on the 8th of March.

The team also lost key climber and 2025 Giro d'Italia winner Simon Yates after a surprise retirement and Vingegaard’s long-standing coach Tim Heemskerk, while Van Aert was set to make a tentative return to competition this weekend following an ankle break during the cyclocross season before his illness. In addition, Sepp Kuss struggled with illness at the Tour of Oman and domestiques Bart Lemmen, Niklas Behrens and Menno Huising have also been ruled out injured.

The dawning of the Spring Classics season suggested an opportunity to revitalise a team which has been struck with misfortune at the beginning of 2026, but Brennan’s crash adds another problem into the mix. It was down to Frenchman Christophe Laporte to salvage fourth place at Omloop Nieuwsblad, himself in recovery after a difficult couple of seasons.

“I’m pleased that I was still able to deliver a strong result for the team today,” Laporte said on the team’s website after the race. “After an unlucky season last year, it’s nice to show myself again in races like this.”

“The rain and wind made it extremely hard. Still, as a team we were always well positioned,” Laporte added. “In the chasing group we worked well together and still came close. In the end, fourth place was the best possible result in these conditions.”

Crashes characterised this particular edition of Omloop, with several leaders of other teams coming down in wet and windy conditions including Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step), Stefan Küng (Tudor) and Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers).

Eventual winner Van der Poel utilised his bike-handling skills to full effect to evade a fallen Tudor rider who slipped just ahead of him on the Molenberg climb. In the end, the former world champion was peerless.

“We came to the start aiming to compete for the win, but in hindsight Christophe’s fourth place is a solid result,” Visma-Lease a Bike sports director Maarten Wynants said.

“The race was calm for a long time, but toward the finale the crashes followed one another in quick succession…Matthew [Brennan] also crashed heavily. He was able to make it to the team car under his own power. For now, that’s the most important thing.”