Sam Bennett: I really wanted to win but I couldn't take them all on | Sticky Bottle

Sam Bennett rode himself into a body bag yesterday at La Vuelta and very nearly pulled it off. He wanted to win but 2nd was a fantastic result given the stage was over 200km and run off at 50.63km per hour

Sam Bennett has said he did all he could
to win yesterday’s brilliant stage 17 on La Vuelta but simply found himself
overpowered at the finish by Deceuninck-QuickStep.

“I couldn’t take them all on,” an
exhausted Bennett said after what was an incredibly fast day on the roads.

“I rode the race as hard as I could but
it’s so hard to take on all those QuickStep guys, they’re all so strong.

“And they attacked one by one and I
could only do so much. I couldn’t do any more.

“Of course, I wanted to take the win,
but at the end it was a battle six against one,” he added.

Deceuninck-QuickStep had seven of its eight riders in the breakaway and six for most of the stage.

*Gilbert takes the win, just ahead of Sam Bennett who wasn't afraid to go long when he really needed to*

“However, Gilbert was the strongest and
therefore congrats to him,” added Bennett. “The stage was from kilometre zero
until the line; just ridden with high speed and attacks.”

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While he was happy with making the
breakaway, he was the only rider from Bora-hansgrohe and simply found himself
outnumbered by Deceuninck-QuickStep.

“I don’t know was it Štybar or who it
was; but if I didn’t go after him he was just going to go to the finish,”
Bennett explained of chasing down the Czech rider’s late attack.

“And if I go, I had to go really hard so
they couldn’t keep on my wheel. I just ran out of legs the last 400 or 300
metres. I just didn’t have anything left.”

In the end while he overhauled Štybar
another of the Deceuninck-QuickStep men was in Bennett’s wheel; Philippe
Gilbert having the legs to come past the Irishman to win with Bennett in 2nd.

Asked about the sheer spectacle of the
stage, during which the race split to pieces, Bennett said: “I did enjoy it but
there came a point where I thought I was going to be dropped after 100k.

“My legs fell off and I just had to keep
going. Then I came back around in the final because I wouldn’t ride (work in
the group).

“I’d stay behind Quintana because his
team mates weren’t going to ride away from him; I just played that card.

“I tried to recover but it just wasn’t
enough today. My shape isn’t bad but I don’t know how I’ll be tomorrow.”