MAT TEO TR ENTIN

Trentin is the archetypal Quick-Step rider. Without being a leader, he keeps the wins reliably ticking over

Matteo Trentin is a hard rider to pigeonhole. He’s part sprinter, part classics specialist, part breakaway artist. If you had to de!ine him, you might say he’s the archetypal Quick-Step Floors rider – without being a leader, he keeps the wins reliably ticking over, while stage victories in all three grand tours, and second place in both the Giro and Vuelta points classi!ications show not just consistency, but occasional brilliance. His 2015 Paris-Tours win gave him the ‘ruban jaune’ - the uno!!icial accolade for the fastest average speed ever in a classic. Trentin won four stages in the recent Vuelta – three bunch sprints and one from a group – a high water mark in his career. But if any bigname sprinters had been there, that number could easily have been reduced to one. While Peter Sagan can contest bunch sprints against the very best, Trentin has relied on sprinting against lesser riders, or smaller groups, for his wins. That said, the second of his Tour stages came from a reduced group, ahead of Sagan. Quick-Step seems to have suited Trentin !ine, up to now. They are his only team so far, and their modus operandi of hiring some of the very best riders in the world, with a very strong contingent of potential winners behind them to assume leadership when circumstances allow (think Niki Terpstra or Zdenek Štybar) has given him plenty of room to operate. However, he’s signed for Orica as a classics leader for 2017. As a secondary leader in Quick-Step, he’s avoided the pressure that accumulates around outright leaders like Boonen or Kittel, but has taken advantage of the opportunities that position o!fers. Will he have the same freedom to manoeuvre next year?