It is not easy to define a cyclist as Matteo Trentinbut, perhaps, if we needed an adjective, it would be "valuable".
This 31-year-old Trentino, not very tall but lanky, powerful and angular, an excellent rider of fine nose to win, to be in the good cut, with small but valuable palmarès and a thousand battles on the roada few months after joining the company, one of the great assets of the UAE Team Emirates.
His is a campaign split into several parts, with the current one, the spring, possibly being the most intense of all. He has been present since the first of the classics, in the famous "opening weekend"which he dispatched by commenting with Juan Antonio FlechaMatteo Trentin always has his place in the favorites' pigeonhole that is so popular in the Italian previews, especially in the Gazzetta dello Sport.
His career comes from afar, when he learned from the best, from Patrick Lefevere's blues, the former Quick Step, in a team where he rubbed shoulders with Tom Boonen, Niki Terpstra and even Phlippe Gilbert. With them, he had no problem working for his teammates, We remember his decisive role in Gilbert's crushing victory in Flanders.four years ago, but he also knew how to take his chances.
Stages in the big three
And he made the most of them. From minute one, when Matteo Trentin's name was heard in the breakaway of the day, you knew he was going to be in the hunt for the win. Thus won his first stage in the Tour de France, in Lyon, France.eight years ago, beating the likes of Michael Albasini, Andrew Talansky and José Joaquín Rojas in a sprint of twelve escapees. The following year, he would double the performance, being the cyclist of Peter Sagan's nightmares, who was unable to beat him in a head-to-head in Nancy.
With these credentials in the best race in the world, Matteo Trentin offered a couple of "master classes" in the resolution of one of the most beautiful classics in the world.The Paris-Tours, a recently revamped race that happens to be one of the oldest on the calendar, is one of the most beautiful but overlooked on the calendar.
His most important work sonora was produced at the Vuelta 2017 in which he asserted his status as a superb finisher, not sprinter, in an edition full of traps before the finish line and compromises at every corner. This did not discourage him, and he was four stages, including the one in Madrid in which Gobik ambassador Alberto Contador said goodbye to cycling..
In addition to the above, he knew a stage in the Giroin the run-up to the Alps, in one of those unforgettable finishes, playing in the majority with his teammate Brambilla to beat Moreno Moser to success, coming from behind, when no one was counting on him.
Now Matteo Trentin is aiming to give a monument to the UAE Team Emirates in a task that we have already seen will not be easy, as the level is sky-high. He has on his agenda all the big ones, from San Remo, through Harelbeke, Wevelgem and Flanders, and also Roubaix.before his suspension, a bunch of objectives in which he has been and continues to be a wheel to watch.
He, along with Alexander Kristoff, Sven Erick Bystrom, Vegard Stake Laengen and Fernando Gaviria, forms the core of the classics in a UAE Team Emirates who does not know a race of formality, as he always comes with tricks.
Photos BettiniPhoto / Fizza Photo
