Brennan sprints to historic fifth stage win at Vuelta

Great Britain's Matthew Brennan continued his remarkable Grand Tour debut by sprinting to a fifth stage victory at this year's Vuelta a Espana.

The 21-year-old Visma Lease-a-bike rider edged out Jordi Meeus and Magnus Cort in a bunch sprint to win the 17th stage of the Grand Tour in Seville.

In doing so, Brennan became the youngest-ever rider to reach five Grand Tour victories and also the first man to win five stages of the same Grand Tour since Marcel Kittel during the 2017 Tour de France.

Just like he did after winning stage 16 on Tuesday, the Brit raised his hands in the air as he crossed the finish line but this time with all five fingers up to mark his fifth stage win of the race.

The largely flat 185km route from Dos Hermanas to Seville was always expected to favour the sprinters.

Spain's Sinuhe Fernandez and France's Enzo Paleni broke away early and created a gap of more than five minutes on the peloton at the halfway point.

Groupama FDJ-United rider Paleni then dropped Fernandez but was caught by the peloton with just three kilometres remaining.

Brennan came around Cort in the closing metres before holding off Meeus to seal another impressive victory in a dramatic finish.

In the general classification, Spain's Enric Mas, eyeing a first Grand Tour victory, maintained his lead over Felix Gall, with four-time Vuelta winner Primoz Roglic in third place.

Stage 18 on Thursday is a 32.1km individual time trial, offering one of the last opportunities for Mas' rivals to reduce their gap to the leader.

Matthew Brennan (GB/Team Visma Lease-a-bike) 04hrs 07mins 15secs

Jord Meeus (Bel/Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) Same time

Steffen De Schuyteneer (Bel/Lotto Intermarche)

Axel Laurance (Fra/Netcompany Ineos Cycling)

Enric Mas (Spa/Movistar Team) 60hrs 11mins 50secs

Felix Gall (Aut/Decathlon CMA CGM Team) +2mins 06secs

Primoz Roglic (Slo/Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +2mins 10secs

Richard Carapaz (Ecu/EF Education-EasyPost) +4mins 24secs

Oscar Onley (GB/Netcompany Ineos Cycling) +5mins 44secs

Jakob Omrzel (Slo/Bahrain Victorious) +6mins 14secs

Mattias Skjelmose (Den/Lidl-Trek) +6mins 49secs

Cristian Rodriguez (Spa/XDS Astana Team) +7mins 01secs

Clement Berthet (Fra/Groupama-FDJ United) +7mins 19secs

Sepp Kuss (US/Team Visma Lease-a-bike) +8mins 55secs