Sam Bennett has said he was very happy with his performance on the opening stage of UAE Tour, where he took 2nd place, as he believed he had more to come.
The Irishman, now riding with Bora-hansgrohe again, has a new lead-out train for 2022. While long-term team mate Shane Archbald is with him again, Irish road race and TT champion Ryan Mullen and Dutch sprinter Danny van Poppel are new team mates for Bennett.
As well as riding with new personnel, Bennett is also coming back from a period of injury and having won his last race in May of last year. He left his finishing effort very late today, and was guided to the front by a late charge from Van Poppel after Bora-hansgrohe did not join the mill at the front in the closing kilometres.
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But despite coming from a long way back even with 2km to go, Bennett still got closer to stage winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Fenix) than anyone else and took 2nd place.
“Because my form isn't quite at 100 per cent yet, we didn't have such high expectations today,” Bennett said of the team’s approach to his first race of the season in what is a second stint with Bora-hansgrohe.
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“Our goal was to work on our lead-out and learn how to best ride together. We took a bit of a risk, and started the lead-out late, but it worked out very well in the end."
Bennett continued: “The guys did a great job in a stressful situation, and this performance is of course very confidence-boosting for us. I think our performances will only get better from here. We can be really pleased with how things went today.”
Bora-hansgrohe sports director, Rolf Aldag, said the conditions today – with a headwind on the way out and tailwind coming back – the team decided to take an usual approach.
“In principle, the idea was to go for a sprint with Sam and come into the finale a little later, so to wait and come from behind with momentum. Of course, that entails a certain element of risk, but it ultimately worked out quite well,” he said.
“We're really pleased with the result and can certainly build this performance of ours today. Tomorrow is another sprint stage and we'll be trying again for a result there."
