Matteo Trentin wins Le Samyn
msn.comMatteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) won GP Le Samyn after he outsprinted the break on the uphill finale in Dour. The Italian's aggression helped to form the winning move at the beginning of the final lap of the finishing circuit, and he had the strength to fend off Hugo Hofstetter (Arkea-Samsic) and Dries De Bondt (Alpecin-Fenix) in the sprint.
As ever, the GP Le Samyn was a race of attrition, with a sizeable peloton eventually being whittled down to its bare bones by the ebb and flow of attack and counter-attack on the cobbled sectors that punctuated the finishing circuit, and Trentin was present at every critical juncture.
Together with the prominent Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Soudal), Trentin was wise to the danger when Oliver Naesen (AG2R Citroën) accelerated on the penultimate lap with 40km remaining, and he was wise to every move that threatened to drift off the front from that moment onwards.
After a group of 20 or so riders forged clear on that penultimate lap, Trentin helped to force to decisive move shortly after the bell, when he launched an acceleration that only Campenaerts, Hofstetter, De Bondt, Stan Dewulf (AG2R Citroën), Josef Cerny (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl), Bert Van Lerberghe (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl), Loic Vliegen (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Hugo Hofstetter (Arkéa-Samsic), and Dries Van Gestel (TotalEnergies) could follow. "The race was very hard and with the team we decided to try to form a break with a small group, because we knew Jakobsen is one of the best sprinters in the world," Trentin explained afterwards. "The group had 25 riders and then kept getting smaller.
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