Is that a smile or a grimace? Sam Bennett is still clearly struggling from the injuries he sustained in a crash on the opening stage of the Tour de France but he is refusing to quit.
By Brian Canty
In Vielha
Sam Bennett has said that while he’s finding the going very tough at the Tour de France he’s showing continued improvement and is staying in the race because he knows it’ll make him stronger.
The Bora Argon 18 man was in good spirits at the start of stage nine in Vielha this morning but accepted the fact today’s stage would be nothing more than a race for survival.
“I’m feeling much better, the antibiotics are coming out of the system and I’m starting to feel better day by day,” he told stickybottle this morning.
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“It’s going to be a really difficult start, I don’t know how it will be but it looks uphill for most of the day so that’ll be really difficult. I’m a bit more confident in my abilities now though.
“I wasn’t on the absolute limit all day yesterday so it was a nice change having things better.
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“There was a good pace in the grupetto, I was happy with that and everything is coming together a bit better.
“Hopefully now I’ll get through today again,” he added.
The Carrick man said he still has a finger splinted to prevent the four stitches he got on it from opening but it doesn’t cause him too much difficulty.
The heat, he joked, was almost as big a concern as more temperatures in excess of 34 degrees are expected today.
“What time is it?” he demanded this morning, incredulous at how hot it could be at 10.38am.
“I lost count of how many bottles I drank yesterday! We ran out of bottles we drank so many in the team!”
Asked why he’s staying going he said: “I could have went home and felt sorry for myself and watched the Tour on TV
“That would have been nice but I said while I’m here I might as well get something from it, try and suffer for three weeks and make myself stronger for races later in the year and future years.
“I’ve got nothing from it so far so why not keep going?”
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