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.
Veteran became first Italian winner of event.
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 said, “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 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.”
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).
Source: Emirates News Agency