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**Matti Breschel**
Personal information
Full name	Matti Breschel
Date of birth	August 31, 1984 (age 25)
Country	Denmark
Height	1.80m
Weight	61 kg
Team information
Current team	Team Saxo Bank
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Sprinter
Amateur team(s)1
until 2004	Team PH
Professional team(s)1
2005-	Team CSC
Major wins
	Vuelta a Espana, 1 stage; Volta a Catalunya, 1 stage; Danish Road Racing Championship, 2009
	Infobox last updated on:
	May 20, 2009 1 Team names given are those prevailing; at time of rider beginning association with that team.

Matti Breschel (born 31 August 1984 in Ballerup) is a Danish professional road bicycle racer who currently rides for UCI ProTour outfit Team Saxo Bank.

[edit] Career

He got his breakthrough with small Danish Team PH, finishing 6th at the U/23 Cycling World Championship in Verona in 2004 where he helped fellow Dane Mads Christensen finish 3rd. He also won the bronze medal at the Danish National Road Racing Championship during the summer of 2004 as well.

He turned professional for the 2005 season in Denmark based Team CSC, where he signed a two-year contract. At the press conference, regarding his choice to join Team CSC in October 2004, he stated that he simply wished to adjust to the rigors of professional cycling, saying "I hope to get in the team, but in the beginning I just want to learn the game and to learn the races. Somewhere I know that I'm in for a beating."^[1] Under tutelage of seasoned veteran Lars Michaelsen,^[2] Breschel would start the season in the Tour of Qatar, where the two riders finished side by side, Breschel conceding the final victory to Michaelsen. They would ride a number of classics and smaller races together, and Breschel finished in a number of secondary placings, just missing the victory podiums.

For the start of the 2006 season, he once again showed himself in Tour of Qatar, finishing as the best young rider of the race for the second year in a row. He showed his good form in March with a third place finish in Le Samyn, being beaten only by Philippe Gilbert in the bunch sprint of the peloton, and a few days later he sprinted his way to second place at stage 2 of the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen where he was second only to world class sprinter Robbie McEwen. For the third, and last, stage of the race, Breschel would once more sprint against McEwen, with the winner taking the overall victory of the race, this time with the effect that both riders crashed. Breschel broke his vertebrae in two places and McEwen was de-classed in the race.^[3]

He came back with thunder and lightning in 2007 and came in an impressive 14th at the Paris-Roubaix, which his team-mate Stuart O'Grady won. After recovering he won his first victory as a professional in stage 2 of Danmark Rundt in August 2007. This was the first Danish stage win in five years of this national tour.

In 2008 his best season came and he got his first big international breakthrough when he on June 8, 2008, won the Philadelphia International Championship also known as the Commerce Bank International Championship in Philadelphia, PA where he outsprinted all contenders in a little bunch sprint after a long and hard race. A couple of weeks later he went on to take another impressive victory when he won the 2nd stage of Ster Elektrotoer, a stage finishing on the feared Cauberg and also won the overall points jersey. He maintained his good form through the season and also came in 2nd in the Danish Road Racing Championship, only beaten by his team made Nicki Sørensen. In August he won two stages at Tour of Denmark and also leaded the overalls until the final time trial securing him a total fifth place. After all a very impressive season for the young gun the biggest scalp came on September 21 where he won the last stage of the Vuelta a España in Madrid in a very convincing way only a few days after he came in second in the 17th stage of the Vuelta a España. Only a week later Breschel rode very impressively at the world cycling championships finishing 3rd and getting a bronze medal.