Veteran becomes first Italian winner of event
Matteo Trentin took home the 10th season victory for UAE Team Emirates and his first of the season with a powerful sprint win at Le Samyn in Belgium.
The 32-year old forged clear in an elite group of 8 riders who moved away inside the final 20km of the cobbled finishing circuit, on a day which took the riders from Quaregnon to Dour (209km).
Trentin made the most of his good form to make attacks in the closing kilometres but found himself a heavily marked man by Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Soudal) who would not let the Italian clear.
In the closing sprint Trentin opened up and held his nerve to finish just ahead of Frenchman Hugo Hofstetter (Arkea-Samsic).
Trentin : “It was a really good race, extremely hard and aggressive from start to finish. As a team we knew we didn’t want it to finish in a big bunch sprint as there were some fast finishers there. Attacks really started from about 50km out, first I went away in a group of 25 and it gradually got narrowed down to just just a few of us. I think today I really tried to make the race instead of following and it worked out well for me in the end. ”
Le Samyn Results
1.Matteo Trentin (UAE Tour Emirates) 4:49:29
2.Hugo Hofstetter (Arkea Samsic) s.t
3.Dries De Bondt (Alpecin-Fenix) s.t
