Sam Bennett has jokingly assured the world he is “fully Irish” after Bradley Wiggins had quipped to Sean Kelly of his fellow Carrick-on-Suir man: “We could almost consider him as British”.
While Wiggins’
attempt at humour didn’t go down too well among many Irish cycling fans, though
others took it less seriously, Bennett has told RTE, Ireland’s national radio
and TV broadcaster, he’s completely Irish.
He said he was
born in Belgium, where his father was playing soccer, and that he stayed there
until he was about 4-years-old before the family returned to Carrick-on-Suir
for his schooling to start.
“I grew up in Ireland and both my parents are Irish, so I’m fully Irish, don’t worry,” he said.
During the rest
day on the Tour de France yesterday Bennett also did a press interview over
Zoom and said while being in the green jersey, and battling with Peter Sagan,
was very hard he was enjoying it and taking each day as it came.
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He believed he
had already sacrificed the chance to win some stages because he was going for
green.
However, as he
had already won a stage on the race, he planned to focus on winning the green
jersey rather than on focus exclusively on winning another stage win.
"It's a nice lead at the minute but it can go down very, very quick. Peter is one of the best in the world so it's not going to be easy," he said of Sagan, whom he leads 269 points to 224.
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Sagan suffered a
major blow when he was relegated from 2nd place on stage 11 for his
barging of Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma). That saw him lose 43 points that day
and while Bennett was bumped up one place to 2nd and so gained an
extra 10 points.
Despite that, Sagan
has continued to fight hard and Bennett knows his rival will not ease off in
the last week of racing.
The battle
between the two during this Tour, not to mention Bennett’s stage win, is set to
make Bennett a household name in Ireland, especially if he wins green, which
now looks very likely.
However, while Sagan’s Bora-hansgrohe team really put Bennett under pressure on Saturday’s stage 14, where Sagan claimed 4th on the stage, the Irish rider felt his rival paid for it the following day.
"But he's one of these guys with incredible strength and I'm sure he will recover really well. He'll be very, very hard to compete with in the next days," said Bennett of Sagan.
With posters and
street signs appearing in his native Carrick-on-Suir, where ‘Sam Bennett fever’
has taken hold, Bennett said that added backing brought pressure but ultimately
he was very grateful for it and was very pleased to see it especially as the
Tour had been so hard.
“I’m not going to
lie I’m pretty tired; I’m only human. It’s been one of the harder Grand Tours
I’ve done. Speaking in the bunch; it has been one of the hardest anyone else has
done.”
However, he said
before he took his stage win – in a bunch sprint into Île
de Ré at the end of stage 10 – he had problems falling asleep until the early
hours. That passed once he got his win and he was ready to stay focused on
defending his points classification lead in the days ahead.
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