By Shane Stokes
Sam Bennett is hoping a difficult 2021 season could result in him prolonging his career and he also told stickybottle he wanted to make his son proud with his performances in the years to come.
Ireland’s eight-time Grand Tour stage winner said it was important to try to look for the upside to things in life. He expressed frustration that for the second time in his career he has been affected by a lingering knee injury, but indicated that he will draw on the same resolve which paid off for him in the past.
“I think just the main thing for me was these are my best years,” he said, speaking about his emotions while on the sidelines. “And I lost one of my best years, I think, in my career.
Advertisement
“I was always playing catch up in my career, and now I have to really play catch up again next year. I always like to take every opportunity I can to get a result.”
Bennett suffered a long-running knee injury while racing as an amateur. He was hit by a car while training close to his family home in Carrick on Suir back in December 2009 and, as a result of that, experienced several years of intermittent knee problems.
He persisted in the sport and made a breakthrough in
2013, winning a stage of the Tour of Britain and securing his first pro
continental contract with Team NetApp Endura in 2014.
He continued progressing over the next few years and won
two stages plus the green jersey in the 2020 Tour de France. He clocked up
seven wins earlier this season and looked set for another strong Tour de
France, but hit his knee off his handlebars while training and was forced to
miss the race.
“It's just one of those things that I have to put behind me. Hopefully now this will make me more fresh and add a few more years to my career,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know. You just have to put a positive twist on it.”
Bennett’s volatile team manager Patrick Lefevere
suggested at one point that the rider would need a knee operation to rectify
the problem. However, Bennett ultimately didn’t need to go down that route,
being able to recover through a combination of rest and specific exercises.
“It needed a bit of time,” he said. “But I remembered the
sensations (from before), they really felt like tendonitis. And so then I just
started doing eccentric exercises. And within two weeks, I was good. So I lost
a lot of time for no reason, I think.”
Related News
He returned to racing at the European Championships, and
while he was a non-finisher there and in two subsequent races with his
Deceuninck-QuickStep team, he started the national championships last Sunday.
“I was a bit more confident (about taking a result) until
I saw the circuit,” he laughed. “I think the circuit would actually be good for
me if I had good condition.”
He said that he didn’t have expectations from the race,
in terms of a result, but was looking forward to being back in competition
again on Irish roads. He said that it was nice to have a chance to interact
with Irish cycling supporters.
“I think after the Tour de France (in 2020), I should
have come home and embraced it a bit more. It's really nice for the pros to
make an effort to come back to support this event. And the more pros that are
here, the more competition, the better it is. I think it's quite exciting.”
Bennett made the initial selection of 18 riders and while
he was ultimately distanced and withdrew from the race, will be happy to get
more competitive kilometres under his belt.
“If I didn't race at the end of the season, I would have
been nine months without competition, which is just too long,” he explained.
“The thing was, I wanted to make a target just for me to have some ambition, to
get over to this knee injury and to help me along.
“So I made the nationals my target. I wanted to be as
good as possible for this race. I think it was a good target, and it sped up
the recovery quite a bit then, in the last month or so. I think things have all
gone quite well.”
Bennett said that the nationals could end up being his
final race of the season, but that he wasn’t yet sure. “I still have to get
permission from the team, but there’s a crit in on 28th of November in Monaco.
So maybe I'll be doing that. I have to speak with the team.
“And then if the team gives me any more races, then
obviously I have to go, but normally this is my last real competitive race this
season.”
He is moving back to the Bora-hansgrohe squad for next season and will work hard in the coming months to get back to top form as soon as it is possible.
He has the motivation of proving Lefevere wrong in his criticism of him, of reaffirming his ability as perhaps the top sprinter in the sport, and also because he will become a father for the first time in the coming months.
Asked if the thoughts of having a son also motivated him,
he was clear. “Absolutely,” he answered. “Yeah. I want to do him proud.”
Topics
