Sam Bennett said he was really hoping to win the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic so he could get his time in the Irish champion's jersey off to a flying start.
The Irish rider looked comfortable on the five ascents of Box Hill on Sunday before the race swept back into central London for the big finish.
However, a spanner was thrown into Bennett's works just inside the last 2km when a crash just back from the front of the bunch dismantled the Bora-hansgrohe lead-out effort.
“The crash was unfortunate but that is the nature of the course, it was dangerous as the roads weren't always good," Sam Bennett said.
"We were all bunched up and you couldn’t see the bumps in the road. So it was a pretty bad crash but fortunately everyone is okay.
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"I really wanted to win this race especially as it is the first time that I race in the champion's jersey and we tried but we were just a bit unlucky.”
Jempy Drucker came off worst of the team and once that crash occurred Bennett was left to his own devices in the sprint.
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He was competing with Elia Viviani, who got a great lead-out from his Deceuninck-QuickStep team mate Michael Mørkøv.
Bennett jumped onto the back of that duo but Viviani was clearly on a good day and sprinted in to win just ahead of the Irishman, with Mørkøv taking 3rd place.
Bennett’s sports director André Schulze said the Irishman and his team mates did what they could in the finale given the circumstances.
“The race went as we had imagined it. We were aiming for
the breakaway not to have too big a lead and Juraj (Sagan) has kept the
escapees to about three minutes,” he said.
“Then in the finale we focused fully on Sam and that
worked well too. Teamwork was perfect up to 1.5km from the finish.
“But then there was a crash in the field and we were
naturally affected by that.
“Sam was then on his own and had to invest a lot of
energy to get in the right position on the home stretch.
“Nevertheless, he still managed to sprint to a very
strong second place and we can be satisfied with that result.”
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