Having gotten his season off to a great start way back in January, by winning the first stage of Vuelta a San Juan Internacional (2.Pro), Sam Bennett has endured a more mixed campaign since then and is yet to take a second victory.
The Bora-hansgrohe rider has come close several times, finishing on the podium no fewer than five times since that first win. However, after falling ill during Paris-Nice, Bennett abandoned after stage 5.
Since then he has abandoned the only three races he started; Milano-Sanremo, after crashing out, and then Classic Brugge-De Panne and Gent Wevelgem after his team said he had not fully recovered from his Paris-Nice bout of illness.
However, Bennett will be back in action tomorrow at Eschborn-Frankfurt (1.UWT) in Germany, a race he won last year. Back then his victory settled the nerves after he had struggled to find his form on his return from an injury-hit 2022 and on rejoining Bora-hansgrohe and starting to work with new lead-out personnel.
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Bennett claimed victory 12 months ago in a bunch sprint and though the remainder of the season was tricky, he came good at La Vuelta with two stage wins before Covid-19 forced him out.
This time around Bennett will look to find his winning kick again tomorrow and then continue with that winning habit in his next race, provisionally Tour de Hongrie. That five-day race runs from May 10th to 14th and was won overall last year by Eddie Dunbar, then Ineos Grenadiers.
Tomorrow in Germany - a one-day World Tour race of 203.8km - Bennett will have his final lead-out man Danny van Poppel to set him up for what he hopes will be a winning sprint, as was the case last year. Indeed, the quality of the lead-out at last year's edition was confirmation that the new personnel he had brought with him to Bora-hansgrohe was definitely the right choice.
While Ryan Mullen is absent tomorrow, the Bora-hansgrohe team is a strong one - with plenty of options if the race does now come down to an expected bunch sprint. Also in the line-up are: Emanuel Buchmann, Marco Haller, Patrick Konrad, Anton Palzer and Nils Politt.
While there is a long way still to go before the Tour de France, Bennett is effectively now embarking on what should be a prolonged block of racing before taking a break to recover and prepared for the Tour de France, assuming he makes the team.
