Irish sprint Sam Bennett said he wasn’t sure how he would perform at the end of today’s opening stage at Volta ao Algarve and, despite winning the day, he said he suffered.
“I was on the limit today,” Bennett said after his victory into Portimão after 4½ hours in the saddle on his return outing following a month-long racing break.
“I didn’t know how the legs were going to be coming into
this race after a short break. But the team did an incredible job.
“Even when they came down in the crashes, they adapted to the situation and did an incredible job,” he said in reference to both Shane Archbold and Fabio Jakobsen crashing with just under 4km to go.
However, despite that mishap – which appeared minor and caused no injuries – Deceuninck-QuickStep delivered Bennett perfectly for the final sprint courtesy of Davide Ballerini and Michael Mørkøv.
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“I just needed to stay alert, try and stay upright and
put trust in my teammates,” Bennett said of the finish. “It was hard in the end
but I managed to pull it off.
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“I didn’t have much training done for this race and I have a lot of work to do after the sensations I had today. But it’s a boost of confidence to finish the job off.”
Bennett takes the race lead into tomorrow’s stage 2; some
182.8km of racing from Sagres to Fóia. It includes a three
climbs in the final 40km, including the cat 1 to the finish.
Though that terrain will be too hilly for Bennett to compete, he should get another crack at a stage victory on Friday’s stage 3, when he will be aiming for his seventh victory of the season.
He now leads overall from today’s
runner-up Danny van Poppel (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert
Matériaux) and 3rd placed Jon Aberasturi (Caja Rural-Seguros
RGA).
All of the 81 riders who finished in the
bunch today are on the same time as there were no time bonuses on the finish
line.
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