Sam Bennett announced himself to the pro peloton with victory at the Clasica de Almeria in March and has won four races since then.
By Gerard Cromwell
After a successful start to his first year as a professional, Sam Bennett took a well deserved mid season break after the national road race championships and is now building towards what he hopes will be a good end of season.
Having gone into the championships as one of the favourites however, Bennett ended up missing the all important early break and abandoned the event before the end.
“At the nationals it didn’t really matter how strong I was,” he says of the Irish title race.
“It was like having a target on your back. The lads in Ireland are strong enough to compete with me and I couldn’t ride against the whole field.
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“It was hard but that’s the way it is and that’s what you expect if you win a race the week before, so I can’t have any complaints.”
Although he has four professional victories under his belt already this year, Bennett says his early season form was nowhere near his best and there is hopefully more to come.
“I’d like to have done a bit better but I can’t complain,” says the Carrick On Suir youngster.
“My form wasn’t really that good in the first half of the season but I still managed to pull out some results by mainly just using my sprint.
“I was happy with that but I’d like to have a stronger second half of the season. I felt that I only started to come into good form in the few weeks before the nationals. It’s still not the best but it’s getting there.”
Bennett in full flight has become a familiar sight this season and he is the most prolific rider on the NetApp Endura squad this year.
After the nationals the Carrick sprinter took a mid-season holiday, spending a week on the beaches of Sicily, and has had ample time to digest his first few months in the paid ranks.
“I don’t know what has been my best performance but I can see positives in a lot of rides,” he says.
“There’s certain moments I’m proud of.
“In Rund Um Koln I was confident enough in my sprint to wait until the last moment. I didn’t panic and go too early and I was able to win that way.
“In Bayern Rundfahrt I was happy that I knew what to do and I just did it to perfection and was able to win there.
“The pro kermesse in Belgium a few weeks ago, I was really happy with that, even though it’s just a pro kermesse. I was still happy to be able to get in the breakaway and win from it.”
Apart from his four wins, he also took 5th on a stage of WorldTour event Tirreno-Adriatico and 12th at the Gent Wevelgem classic, although he is not entirely happy with either.
“I was happy with them but at Tirreno I got pushed into the barriers and was going over the legs of the barriers and lost all my momentum.
“In Gent Wevelgem I was behind a wall of riders that I just couldn’t come around so I’m not going to be proud of getting 12th in a race.
“I suppose as a sprinter I’m fast more than strong but at the minute I’m trying to build that engine.
“The fresher you get to the finish, the faster you’re going to be at the end so I’m trying to build my strength and get a bit fresher to the end.”
With that goal in mind, Bennett and his trainer have changed his approach to the season this year, including plenty of rest periods in between racing.
“I have more race days done this year than I had all season last year, around 45 days but I took three days off after every stage race I did.
“Any time I did a stage race, I took three days completely away from the bike and then built back up from it so I’ve never really felt sluggish or burned out.
“We decided that it was better to stay healthy than to push for more form, especially with the weather in Belgium so I’ve felt fresh all year.”
From day one of his pro career, Bennett was on the podium. Seen here wearing the white jersey of best young rider at the Tour of Qatar in February.
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Although disappointed to miss out on NetApp Endura’s debut ride at the Four de France, Bennett has kept an eye on his teammates since the race began in Yorkshire and even found himself wondering how he might have fared in the opening days.
“It was never my intention to want to go in and complete the Tour, but to go in and do a week or 10 days in the Tour would be like any of the other WorldTour races.
“Okay, it’s the Tour de France and everybody wants to do well at the Tour. It’s a higher standard again maybe but I don’t think a few sprint stages were going to burn me out in any respect.
"But in saying that, the team have done it for a reason and I totally agree with them.
“I can absolutely see why they did that. As long as I can still have my days and good performances in other races I’m happy enough.
“I watched the first week, the bunch sprints, wondering if I could be up there in them but hopefully there’s going to be plenty of other years.
“I got an idea of what might be like at Tirreno-Adriatico but I was getting a kicking there because I wasn’t in form. It was hard to take then, but maybe now it would be different.
“I think maybe the team looked at me with those kind of legs and said no, but I think I’m slowly coming back to the rider I was at the end of last year which was an awful lot better.
“The team had had some bad luck with David de la Cruz breaking a collarbone on Thursday and Vossy (Paul Voss) coming down in the first week, breaking his nose and finger.
“Tiago (Machedo) had a bad crash too and was in the ambulance about to abandon after a really bad smack. He kept going though and it shows, to be able to continue after that, shows their strength, their mental strength more than anything.
“Leo (Konig) had a great ride yesterday in the mountains too and is in the top 10 now so that was great to see.”
Bennett hopes to repeat his stage victory of last year when he tackles the Tour of Britain again in September.
Missing the Tour however has enabled Bennett to take a short break from training for a week, recharging the batteries before building up again for what he hopes will be a strong the end of year campaign.
“At the start of the season I was nowhere near the rider I was last year,” he says.
“There was no comparison. I couldn’t pull my own weight anywhere.
“My form started to come good before the nationals but I’d done a lot of racing so the team said to take a week off and start building up again.
“I took a week off, took the first week slowly and then started again, trying to build that engine I had last year. My form hasn’t been as good yet this year so I want to try and get the most out of it.
“I haven’t been bad in the races. I’ve been able to sprint. But I’d just like to be able to get better results. I have to be happy with the start of the season but I’d like better results.
His first race back is the Ride London Classic next month and he will return to the Tour of Britain this year, after a stage win there last year earned him his first pro contract.
“I’m really up for a race now but I don’t have one for another little while. The Tour of Britain is something I want to do well in though,” he admits.
“It would be awesome to win a stage there. In a way, that’s where I made it, so the race means something to me and I would like to go back and if I could, win a stage.
“It’s ranked 2.HC now so it will be difficult but we’ll see. I’ll give it a go anyway.”
Bennett’s NetApp Endura squad this week announced their new title sponsor BORA, who have come on board for the next five years and Bennett is excited at plans to go to WorldTour level in the future.
“The first inclination I had was when I saw the BORA ads on Eurosport,” he says of the new sponsors.
“But I didn’t know until the morning of the rest day. It’s great. It’s great to see that we have a German sponsor of a German team.
“It’ll be great for German cycling and it’s going to be exciting to see how the team develops.”
A new sponsor means a new jersey next year for Sam Bennett.
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