Trinity Racing being at the Tour of the Alps is "huge" for the team, Pete Kennaugh has said, as he experiences the "full circle" of being around people he used to ride with at Team Sky, but now as a member of staff.
The British UCI Continental team, run by Andrew McQuaid, is flying the flag for the UK domestic scene at the week-long stage race, and Kennaugh, the squad's directeur sportif at Trinity Racing and former Team Sky professional told Cycling Weekly that so far, the overall performance from his team has been even better than he expected.
“It’s huge for us as a team, and for the riders to gain experience and to see how the professionals hold themselves and ride as a team during the race,” he said. “They’ve taken so much from this race already. We were invited to O Gran Camiño at the start of the year, and I think we rode amazingly there.”
The race has been largely dominated by Ineos Grenadiers who lead the overall standings through Tao Geoghegan Hart after stage four. However, Trinity were happy to get in on the thick of the action on stage three, with Liam Johnston making the day's breakaway.
Kennaugh said that he hoped to see the team continue to progress in the months to come.
“This has been a huge invite for us as well. So for me, it would be nice to keep the ball rolling and continue to keep progressing as a team and show that actually we can come to these races and be involved. On stage three we had Liam in the breakaway… I was really proud of the guys that day.”
Even more special for Kennaugh was how quickly his team first gelled at the Tour of the Alps, particularly as the race has been the groups first elite competitive outing together.
“We’ve got two guys who were juniors last year. So they’re just learning huge amounts each day,” Kennaugh added. “This is a new team here as well… this is the first race they’ve rode together. So the first couple of days was a bit of getting to know each other, they’ve only had one training camp together, but so far so good.”
“We’ve been really impressed with them, how they’ve ridden and how professionally they’ve held themselves in this environment. There’s so much to learn every day, so it’s great to see, and great to be a part of.”
Kennaugh told CW that his riders have gained vast experience from going up against the star packed Ineos team, and that a few laughs were had with some old friends on the opening night in Austria.
“It was quite funny actually, as the first hotel we were in was with Ineos. It was really strange being here as a director and Swifty [Ben Swift] and G [Geraint Thomas] still being riders. It was really strange actually… It’s almost like a complete full circle, it’s so bizarre.”
