Sam Bennett lashes over the cobbles in the field in Dwars Door Vlaanderen; with two accents of the Kemmelberg ahead of him tomorrow, Sunday.
Ireland’s Sam Bennett goes into tomorrow’s Ghent Wevelgem as leader of his NetApp-Endura squad, hoping he can use his early season form and sprint to bag a good result.
The Carrick man was in action in his first semi classic with his new squad midweek; listed as a non-finisher in Dwars Door Vlaanderen on Wednesday which took the riders over the cobbles of northern Europe for 201km.
Four days later, Bennett is now also due to start in Ghent-Wevelgem. Fellow Carrick-on-Suir man, Sean Kelly took the only Irish win in 1988, and it’s a race that should also suit Bennett.
He has shown that he is capable of getting over smaller climbs, and if he can stay in touch over the two ascents of the Kemmelberg, then he could be in line for a decent result.
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For this year’s edition it’s difficult to look beyond the likes of last year’s winner Peter Sagan (Cannondale) or Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Fabian Cancellara (Trek Factory Racing) and Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) for the win.
Bennett himself is no stranger to tough cobbled races, though both Dwars Door Vlaanderen and tomorrow’s Ghent-Wevelgem are a step up in quality of field than he has been used to in early one-day races in previous years with An Post-Chainreaction.
Tomorrow’s event is his second WorldTour race following on from Tirreno-Adriatico the week before last where he took 4th place in the bunch sprint that settled stage 2 and also battled through his first really high mountains.
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At 233km and against the biggest one-day riders in the world who are all now in top gear for the classics season, it’s a mark of the impact Bennett has made since moving to NetApp-Endura that he leads the team into his race.
For company he has Zak Dempster, Blaz Jarc, Jonathan McEvoy, Andreas Schillinger, Daniel Schorn, Scott Thwaites and Paul Voss.
Bennett has already taken 3rd on a stage in the Tour of Oman against the big guns, 4th on a stage in Italy the week before last, worn the young riders’ jersey in the Tour of Qatar and taken victory in the Clasica de Almeria, as well as bagging a series of other top 10 places in both Oman and Qatar.
He will be looking to see if that rocket start to 2014 can continue in the major one-day events on his schedule which includes Scheldeprijs the week after next and where he is tipped to ride well as the win usually comes down to a bunch sprint.
Sam Bennett in action in Dwars Door Vlaanderen during the week. He's hoping to do better at Ghent-Wevelgem tomorrow, Sunday.
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