Gert Steegmans has been pursued by the Belgian press after he exploded after OPQS’s decision to chase down a move he was involved in at the national championships for Tom Boonen, only for Boonen to lose the sprint. The tension is still there, but Steegmans has never elaborated on what happened with his former employers.

“I had some good moments and I’ll keep those good moments and memories,” was Steegmans’s offering at the Tour of Qatar on Thursday when Cyclingnews asked him to sum up his time at Patrick Lefevere’s team. Steegmans isn’t just angry with the nationals, but about being left out of the Classics squad and the Tour de France team in 2014 too.

His new teammate Fabian Cancellara, who will certainly benfit from the strong Classics riders arrival at Trek Factory Racing, also refused to coment on the matter.

“That’s another story that I don’t want to go into, especially the Belgian press will love to hear more,” Cancellara said, half-jokingly.

However the Classics star added that: “From the outside I felt pity in a few races where he didn’t get his chances towards the end or when he did win he didn’t get what he deserved. I think there were some conflicts – not conflicts – issues between some people, and that’s what I saw from the outside. It’s business though and in the end he could join our team and he’s motivated.”

Trek DS Dirk Demol has spoken about how influential the arrival of the veteran Belgian could be to the team, especially after Danilo Hondo retired at the end of last season.

“We needed to have someone else and I worked with Geert in 2008 at Quickstep and he was a great domestique. Then we took him here [RadioShack] in 2010 as a sprinter and a leader and maybe he isn’t suited to that pressure so his best role is to help a leader like Fabian.”

“I knew that he couldn’t stay with QuickStep in around the middle of the season. I don’t know why, it’s internal, so you’d have to ask them, but he can do the Classics and the sprints and I told the management to take him.”

“When we sat down in November with the team directors we saw that the programme for the WorldTour and other races was really tight, especially at the start of the season and kept pushing for us to sign Geert. As soon as I heard that he was free I was ready to sign him.”

His former DS at OPQS, Wilfried Peeters said that Steegmans was at fault for the nationals.

“Well we had some problems with selection last year with him not riding Flanders and Roubaix but he wasn’t on the level of two years ago though and in the end we didn’t give him a contract. What can I say?” was the Belgian’s first response when asked why Steegmans has been ushered out of the team.

“At the nationals he made a big mistake. He didn’t want to talk with the team director in the race. When the car came up on the left he turned to the right to speak. I’d make the same decision now. We had one goal, to win the race, and if he said to Tom Steels [who was driving the team car behind the break] that he wanted to win, then no problem but he said nothing.”

“It was only after the race he said he could win. If he’s said with 40k to go that he could win, then no problem but he said nothing. He should have shown a little bit of respect for my team colleague.”