Surely we all love a bunch kick? The tension, the uncertainty, the chaos and the sheer speed, the strutting arms-in-the-air celebrations and the bar-banging of the losers can make hours watching an otherwise mundane day of a stage race all worthwhile.
While there might be only a small group of riders able to win at the highest level, it’s the most highly competitive area of the sport, even when there are only a couple of the best sprinters in the final, you can bet your bottom dollar there’ll be plenty of pretenders trying their luck.
And while sheer power is, of course, vital, winning isn’t all about legs, reading the ebb and flow of a fast moving group is essential, and timing is equally important, using whatever slipstream there is before emerging into the wind at the perfect moment to ensure your maximum effort counts.
Then there’s the lead-out, making the high speed chaos all around slow down so the right decisions are made at the right time. And the best sprinters can either profit off their teammates’ work or surf the wheels to be in the right place at the right time.
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Sprinting is a true art. But who were the best artists in 2026? Among the women, there can be only one dominant rider, but on the men’s side it’s much harder to determine who was best. When the sprinter’s job is to finish the job of the team and win, statistics count for everything, so we’ve ranked seven of the best by their wins.
Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime)
Lorena Wiebes set out her stall for the year in February, dominating the UAE Tour Women and winning all three flat stages for the second consecutive season. She wore the yellow jersey after winning the opening two stages at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and won two general classifications, at the Tour de Pologne and Tour of Chongming Island, where she won all the stages.
Winning from February through to October, she showed remarkable resilience, though there were some interesting blips. At the Ronde van Brugge she lost the record which had seen her win every bunch sprint she’d contested since the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, finishing ninth behind Carys Lloyd (Movistar). Worse, though, was her disqualification when commissaires found her bike to be underweight after she won the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia.
Despite a crash during the Track World Championships, where she won the Scratch Race rainbow jersey, she’ll be back and looking for retribution next year, and no one would be surprised if she adds another 24 victories to her total.
Paul Magnier (Soudal-QuickStep)
Having turned professional as recently as 2024, Paul Magnier is rapidly blossoming into the sprinter to beat in the men’s peloton. He won his first professional race, bagging a further four victories that year, before taking a whopping 19 wins in his second season.
That number might have dipped to only 15 in 2026, but he equalled his tally of six WorldTour wins, and the total is still formidable, especially when considering he shares the team’s WorldTour sprinting duties with Tim Merlier.
At this year’s Giro d’Italia the 22-year-old Frenchman showed remarkable progression, delivering a hugely contrasting performance to last year’s first participation, when he managed only three top-10 placings and failed to finish. This time round he won three stages and wore the cyclamen jersey for all but two days, eventually taking home his first Grand Tour points classification.
As for his other victories, they came in a steady flow throughout the year, proving not only his consistency, but his place at the forefront of an emerging breed of sprinters, who are arguably more able to win after a lumpy day than their predecessors.
Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep)
That Soudal-QuickStep have two sprinters in our list is an indication of the team’s pivot away from targeting general classifications to stages and Classics. With Tim Merlier they had someone ready made to take advantage, and while he was behind teammate Paul Magnier in the list of overall winners for the season, 14 victories is a great haul.
While Magnier is the young pretender, Merlier is the wily old timer, and though he may not be as versatile as the French tyro, he knows his way around a bunch kick better than most, and is able to deploy a prolonged burst of power few others can match. This means he is often able to rescue lost causes, and makes him perfect for the chaos of high-stakes Grand Tour sprints.
At the Tour de France this year Merlier equalled the previous best ever Grand Tour return set at the 2024 Giro d’Italia, taking three stages before abandoning on stage 15. That took his tally of Tour stage wins to six, winning at least one in each of his three participations at the world’s biggest race. However, though those victories count for a lot, those were his only WorldTour wins of the year, with the bulk of his 14 successes coming at second tier .Pro level.
This is, perhaps, an indication that the team’s sprinting mantel is gradually being handed from the 33-year-old to Magnier, though the older man is sure to fight to keep hold of his status as their leading sprinter.
Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike)
If Matthew Brennan hadn’t established himself as one of the peloton’s best sprinters by winning 12 races last season, his first as a professional, he certainly did in 2026.
Not only did he match that total, but the 21-year-old stamped his authority on his first Grand Tour by winning five stages. And there might have been more had Wout van Aert, Visma-Lease a Bike’s star name, not been in the race, the team diverting some of their efforts to the Belgian’s successful pursuit of the points jersey.
Brennan’s Vuelta performance, and two earlier wins at the Vuelta a Burgos, not only helped to establish himself as a top contender, but kickstarted his season after a barren period. Between March and September last year he won in all but one month, while this year seemed less consistent, success coming in clusters.
Still only 20, he began 2026 winning a stage of the Santos Tour Down Under and finishing second three times. Back in Europe he bagged a maiden Classics victory at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, but in the following five months he only cracked the top 10 four times, though three of those were stage wins at the third tier Flèche du Sud.
Such blips are a sprinter’s lot, though, especially one so young, and we can expect more from Brennan in 2027.
Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek)
Despite winning more in 2026 than in any of his previous seasons, Jonathan Milan’s slightly under-par Giro d’Italia and non-attendance at the Tour de France meant he flew slightly under the radar in 2026. Half of his 12 wins came early in the year, but illness and injury left him short of form and rhythm in the middle part of the year.
The 26-year-old started his season perfectly with victory at the opening two stages of the AlUla Tour, following that with three more wins at the UAE Tour. However, things started to go awry back in Europe, and though he won the final stage at Tirreno-Adriatico, illness ruined the rest of his spring.
He arrived at the Giro d’Italia having not raced for almost a month, and coming up against an in-form Paul Magnier, his chances of a third maglia ciclamino were soon gone. Though he managed three top five finishes, he had to wait until the final day in Rome to claim a victory, second place in the points classification scant consolation.
He gained some momentum during the summer, though, after winning his first Italian road title, Milan beat Magnier into second on two of his three stage wins at the Tour de Pologne. Then victory at stage 1 of the Renewi Tour was perhaps a highlight, beating the likes of Merlier, Olav Kooij, Jasper Philipsen and other sprinting royalty, but his season was over two days later when he crashed out.
While he took more wins than ever, without bad luck, 2026 might have been an even better year for Milan.
Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)
Elisa Balsamo might not have been able to best Wiebes during the 2026 season, indeed, she’s not won a race ahead of the Dutch rider since 2023, but 2026 saw the former World Champion return to somewhere near her best form, winning more WorldTour races than any year since 2022.
Winning six times through the season, Balsamo took the bulk of her team’s victories, and while she might not have been so prolific had Wiebes not been forced out of the Giro d’Italia Women, she held the overall lead for three days, winning four stages of her home Grand Tour and taking the overall points classification.
Another standout feature of Balsamo’s 2026 successes were their quality, with all but one of her six victories coming at WorldTour level, while at the other, the 1.1 level Egmont Cycling Race, her sprint was so powerful she put three seconds into second place.
One win which showed Balsamo’ versatility was at the Classic Lorient Agglomération, a race rarely won by a pure sprinter and better suited to Classics specialists, setting her apart from Wiebes, who has never started in Plouay.
Charlotte Kool (Fenix-Premier Tech)
For the first time in a while Charlotte Kool seemed to be returning to somewhere close to her best during 2026, last season’s mid-season move to Fenix-Premier Tech finally bearing fruit.
With six wins, it was her best year since 2023, her first season as a lead sprinter. However, in contrast to that year, none of her six wins during 2026 came at WorldTour level, with two 1.Pro victories her best return.
While she failed to trouble the scorers at the UAE Tour, Kool’s spring campaign was excellent, taking four wins between March 1 and mid-May, and finishing outside the top 10 only twice in 12 starts. But as the season wore on her form tailed off, failing to finish either the Giro d’Italia Women or the Tour de France Femmes, though she managed a stage win at the Baloise Ladies Tour, a race where she’s won seven stages earlier in her career.
Kool is a class act, but, like every other sprinter in the women’s bunch, she’s found beating Lorena Wiebes all but impossible. However, she has beaten her in the years since the two were teammates at DSM in 2022, most notably and recently at the 2024 Tour de France, and if she can find her best form and some confidence, she may well do so again in 2027.
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