It is a significant forfeit that the Visma Lease a Bike finds itself forced to swallow just hours before the Milan-San Remo 2026. The yellow-black team, in fact, will have to do without Matthew Brennan in the Classicissima tomorrow, as has been communicated through social channels. The young rider fell ill during the night between Thursday and Friday and, therefore, will not take part in the first Monument classic of the season.

His is the second significant withdrawal from the Spring World Championship after that of Jonathan Milan who, in a manner not too dissimilar from the twenty-year-old from Darlington, also in recent hours had withdrawn from the competition as he was also unwell.

Postponed, therefore, is Brennan's debut at San Remo, and more generally in a Monument, the talented young rider of his generation who this year (in his second season as a permanent fixture in the Visma World Tour team) has managed to impose himself at the Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne and in a stage at the Tour Down Under after closing 2025 with as many as 12 personal victories.

His journey now, once he has recovered from the illness that struck him, will resume at the In Flanders Fields - From Middelkerke to Wevelgem (the former Ghent-Wevelgem), a race that will serve as an appetizer to the closely-spaced commitments on the cobblestones at the Dwars door Vlaanderen, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix where finally, barring further complications, he should pocket his first entries in the most important one-day races on the calendar.

To remedy his absence tomorrow, Visma Lease a Bike has quickly recalled Victor Campenaerts whose role will likely be to support (along with Christophe Laporte, Edoardo Affini, Timo Kielich and Owain Doull) the two captains remaining for the occasion in Richard Plugge's team, namely Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson.