Bennett hopes to podium at Tour of Britain “with a bit more luck and grumpiness”

Bennett, far left, as the An Posts ride both sides of World Champ Cavendish at the start in Ipswich on Sunday (Photo: www.velouk.net)

An Post-Sean Kelly’s Irish sprinter, Sam Bennett has said he is happy with his finishing speed at the Tour of Britain having bagged 5^th yesterday and 9^th on Monday in the bunch finishes that decided the stages.

However, the U23 international told stickybottle if he had gotten his positioning right in the final 1km on yesterday’s stage into Dumfries he felt he could have taken the final spot on the podium behind stage winner Mark Cavendish (Team Sky) and second-placed Leigh Howard (Orica GreenEdge).

“The team did an absolutely great job getting me up there, really from the 20km to go point to around the last 1km, they couldn’t have done any more,” he told stickybottle.

“With around 1km to go Ronan (McLaughlin) got me right up to Cavendish’s wheel. Then two guys came right in on top of me going into the last corner. The guy ahead of me let a gap of around a bike length go and the guy ahead of him did the same thing. So I had to close a gap to get up close to the fourth placed rider. I was closing and if it had been around 20 or 30 metres more to the line I felt I might have got up onto the podium.”

“I’m quite happy with the speed I have. If I get my positioning sorted a bit better I would like to see what I could do. There’s a lot of pushing and shoving, maybe I need a little bit of luck and to get a bit grumpier on the bike.”

Bennett said while the stages have been long and wet in the first three days in Britain, he has focussed on staying sheltered during the stages as much as he can and eating and drinking plenty and also keeping warm.

“It was absolutely freezing,” he said of the elements on his way to fifth yesterday.

He added that with around 20km remaining in yesterday’s 153km stage, the whole An Post-Sean Kelly team made a train to try and move to the front in one formation, with Mark McNally, McLaughlin and Lithuanian champion Gediminas Bagdonas all contributing very significantly to the effort that would eventually set him up for the sprint finish.

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“It can be hard to even all get together in a train and then stay together and move up,” he said.

Having positioned themselves well for the final push into the finish as the last of the breakaway riders – including Ireland’s Peter Hawkins – were being caught, Bennett said things began to really hot up with around 6km remaining.

He said Bagdonas had been riding strongly at the front to keep the An Post-Sean Kelly train in position before McNally and McLaughlin both put in huge turns to edge the green line towards the front end of the bunch, as the rest of the sprinters’ teams were trying to do the same.

“McNally and Ronan really put in some massive turns to get me up there. Then with around 2.5km to go, Ronan again drilled it to bring me up the side. I could see at one point when the Sky riders were on the front, Ronan did one massive turn at the side for the whole time that it took three of the Sky riders to do a turn each. And then he put me right onto Cav’s wheel; you just couldn’t ask for any more.”

Bennett added that he expected today’s fourth stage – 156km from Carlisle to Blackpool – to end in a bunch sprint, where he will try again to chase a place on the podium. He believed the team was as strong as even the biggest outfits in the race in the closing kilometres, especially as some of the bigger squads like Team Sky have been riding on the front of the peloton for much of the opening stages.

After today he says the next bunch sprint may not be until the closing stage on Sunday into Guildford. If that proves to be the case, he will work for the team to try and repay the effort they have put into his results thus far.

While some of the opening stages have been as long as 200km, Bennett said because they have been controlled they have not felt that long.

“They definitely haven’t felt as hard as these kinds of races can be. But I think it will be hard again (today) into Blackpool to get up for the sprint and then after that we’ve a few very tough stages and it could get very hard.”