Sam Bennett is searching for his second win of the season this week at Tour de Hongrie, and having gone very close to winning the opening stage yesterday the Irishman sounded very confident in his remarks afterwards.
He said he had changed his training regime about five weeks ago, adding he could feel the difference already and was very confident in himself for the remainder of the race, and beyond.
Dylan Groenewegen (Team Jayco AlUla) just got the better of Bora-hansgrohe's Bennett into Szentgotthárd yesterday. But the Irishman wasn't overly worried about that, especially given how well his lead-out train worked, the tiny margin between 1st and 2nd and the quality of the men behind him in the gallop.
“I think it was a strong sprint," Bennett said. "The boys did a great job all day and ultimately leading me out in the finale. Groenewegen was lucky to catch a bit of slipstream behind Danny van Poppel and so it was a super close finish with the better end for Dylan.
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"I changed the training a bit around five weeks ago and definitely can feel a difference already. I’m on the right direction and I’m very confident I’ll be back in top shape in a couple weeks time. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, I’m sure we’ll get another chance to fight for the stage win here.“
Bennett began his season with a victory on the opening stage of Vuelta a San Juan Internacional (2.Pro) way back in January. However, while he has gone close to other wins since then, he is yet to visit the top step on the podium again.
However, yesterday's sprint - in a stacked field of fast men - saw him only pipped by Groenewegen and that performance strongly suggests the Irishman is now in much better shape than he has been in for a couple of months. His season was undermined for a period when he fell ill at Paris-Nice, before abandoning that race. And in the races that followed, he was unable to shake off the hangover from that illness.
Bennett then took a break from racing for about a month and returned for Eschborn-Frankfurt (1.UWT) in Germany on May 1st. However, while he won that event last year, this time around it split to pieces, with a select group going to the line to contest the victory. That means yesterday's sprint was the first time Bennett could test his kick since changing his training during his month's break from racing.
