When Sam Bennett went to join forces with Peter Sagan he found no shortage of rivals trying to spoil the party. Above, the Irishman with team mate and world champion Sagan in Adelaide yesterday.
Satisfaction with the job his team did for him but frustration at just coming up short; that was the verdict from Irish fastman Sam Bennett after his first podium of the new 2017 road race season.
And his comments after finishing runner-up to Australian crit champion Caleb Ewan (Orica-Scott) in Adelaide suggested getting a lead-out from world champion and team mate Peter Sagan is going to be challenging.
The problem with Sagan as lead-out man is that everyone wants his wheel.
Sagan has arrived at BORA-hansgrohe in the off-season and is now a star turn on a team elevated from ProConti to WorldTour level during the winter.
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However, while having dominant riders like Sagan and Bennett on the sane team might seem like a clash, in truth there are plenty of races and opportunities to go around.
Sagan will definitely ride the Tour de France though Bennett is looking to the Giro d’Italia for now.
And they are both likely to follow different race programs as Bennett seeks to hit top form for the Giro in May and Sagan looks to the Tour in July.
There will be times when they'll ride on the same team, of course. After yesterday's People's Choice Classic crit in Adelaide both will compete in the Tour Down Under starting tomorrow.
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And if they are to sometimes switch around and lead-out each other, Bennett is going to have to compete with half the peloton for Sagan’s wheel if his remarks after yesterday's race are anything to go by.
“The guys did an amazing job; they did everything perfectly I can’t thank them enough,” he said after a race in which he was 2nd and Sagan 3rd.
“In the final, everybody thought Peter was sprinting, so it was a fight for his wheel," continued Bennett.
"So he had to hang back for the last kilometre. But even then the last 500m we were still fighting for his wheel and they wouldn’t let him out, and we had to open up the sprint really late.
“We had great power and speed and that gave us great confidence. If we’d just got out in time we would have got that.”
Judging by Bennett’s finishing kick when he finally did get a run at the line – by diving through the traffic – he may well have won had anybody but Sagan been leading him out.
It’s a problem the team, especially Bennett, will need to deal with.
And the coming Tour Down Under should offer a better insight into how the two fastmen are going to combine when they find themselves in the same line-ups for the same events.
The Tour Down Under starts tomorrow when riders will face a lumpy 145km stage 1 from Unley just outside Adelaide to Lyndoch, where they complete a finishing circuit three times before the finish.
And while there are a number of climbs and some testing terrain not long after the start that could split the race, a regrouping and bunch sprint finish is a possible outcome.
It means Bennett and Sagan may not have to wait very long to get another chance at victory and this time hopefully seal the deal.
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