Sam Bennett has said the next stage that could suit the
sprinters on the Vuelta comes this Saturday, adding he considered it as his
next possible goal on the race.
“I might have a look at stage 8, maybe. But I’ll see, I
don’t know how hard that last climb is,” he said of Saturday’s stage.
It takes the riders 166.9km from Valls to
Igualada and features one cat 2 climb; some 7.7km at 6.7 per cent crested just
under 30km before the finish.
The Carrick-on-Suir sprint won Monday’s stage 3 and was 2nd
on Tuesday. He finished in 167th at 21:15.
Bennett said he was delighted to still hold the green
jersey of points classification leader on the Vuelta.
Related News
“Hopefully I can stay in it for another few days but with
this Grand Tour it’s often hard because the climbers often get it,” he said.
Advertisement
“When they’re racing there’s nothing I can really do. So
all I can do is try and do my best in the sprint stages and come back to it at
some stage.”
Asked about his comments earlier on the race about not
being in top condition, he was more circumspect this time around.
“Ah, I’m alright,” he said, moving the conversation on
quickly, before outlining how hard it was to even survive on the hilly stages.
“It’s especially earlier in the stage; you’re just trying
to get into the bottom of the last climb and listen out for when they finish,”
he explained of waiting for news on the radio that the best climbers of the day
had finished the stage.
“And then you try to calculate the time limit and stay
within the time limit and use the minimum amount of energy possible.”
Topics
