Matthew Brennan did not manage to follow up his stunning stage 1 success in the Volta a Catalunya with another stage victory 24 hours later, but what was remarkable enough was that the Visma-Lease a Bike racer managed to come within a whisker of doing so, going second.
First place for the 19-year-old ahead of two Alpecin-Deceuninck riders on Monday at San Feliu de Guixols in an uphill three-way sprint battle had already seen Brennan live up to his status as a highly-respected, last-minute substitution for injured team leader Jonas Vingegaard in full.
Then after a second day's racing with some hefty ascents early on and a very fast run-in to the border town of Figueres, Brennan just missed out on the bunch sprint that decided stage 2 - another uphill finish like on stage 1, but this time with a full peloton thundering towards the line.
Brennan admitted that he had been struggling a little on the biggest climb of the day, the category 1 Coll de Sant Pere de Rodes. But as he said "it's very nice when you have Sepp Kuss pulling for you, that's something special" and as became evident, he recovered more than well enough to go for the bunch sprint.
"We stayed towards the front on the run-in, it was pretty chaotic but I found my way onto a really nice wheel," he said afterwards. "The sprint opened up and when it fanned across the road I got a little bit stuck.
"I managed to get round, but it was not quite enough and I ran out of road, unfortunately. But the team pulled so strong to keep me up there and keep me in position, so I'm really thankful for that."
Brennan was pipped to the line by Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech), but he managed to fend off top favourite Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), second on stage 1, for a second straight day, which was no mean achievement. At the same time, his runner-up place allowed him to keep his first place overall, now six seconds over Groves.
"I felt really good in the finish, I was a little bit gutted I could only launch really late," Brennan said. "But that's bike racing. To still come second in this race and still be in the leader's jersey is really nice, too."
Brennan also had no problems with the splits in the peloton late on the stage after the climb, when a surge by Jayco-AIUIa briefly threatened to cause some echelons, with some 30 riders out the back for around 10 kilometres.
"The team did a great job in keeping the pace on and keeping control, so they all deserve a pat on the back," Brennan concluded.
For a rider whom by his own admission is not a mountain specialist, stage 3's 5,000 metres of vertical climbing and summit finish at La Molina will almost certainly mean an end to his spell in the lead.
But if stage 1 of the Volta a Catalunya marked a major milestone in the 19-year-old's career, his near-miss and simultaneous solid defence of the top spot overall on stage 2 amply confirmed that.
