Sam Bennett has found a very cool way of displaying the jerseys from what he feels are his three favourite career wins to date. You can click on the image above for a larger version. From left to right: Points winner's jersey after claiming stage five of the 2014 Bayern Rundfahrt, his European junior track championships gold medal, and the jersey he claimed after winning the penultimate stage of the 2009 FBD Insurance Rás. On the extreme left is a certain lanterne rouge, which will prove hugely symbolic as his career progresses.
By Brian Canty
We've lost count of how many races Sam Bennett has won in his career to date but the man himself has picked the three he regards as his favourites.
The Carrick-on-Suir sprinter burst onto the scene as a junior. And among those wins in his top three is the European Championships gold medal he claimed in the points race in 2008 in Poland.
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Bennett's partner in crime in the race that day was close friend and former Ireland and An Post-Chainreaction teammate Sean Downey.
The Banbridge man's contribution on the day cannot be understated and Downey himself finished 12th.
Butter wouldn't melt: Downey and Bennett jointly celebrated the latter's gold medal in the 2008 European junior track championships points race in Poland.
A year after winning his European junior track title Bennett became the youngest ever stage winner in the history of the Rás.
He was only 18 years old and had never trained over 120 kilometres, let alone raced it. So to win after a 150-kilometre stage from Castlebar to Clara was obviously a very big deal.
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He had already shown huge potential and obviously had already claimed a European track title.
But it's fair to say that victory was the first time he went head-to-head with very strong elite riders at the end of a long hard race and won out.
The blue jersey he got that day was for the stage win and he later dedicated the victory to his mother Helen who had been battling cancer at the time and has since made a full recovery.
Bennett absolutely nails the sprint that decided stage seven of the FBD Insurance Rás from Casltebar to Clara (Picture: Sportsfile)
And five years later he announced himself on the international stage with a brilliant win in the 2.HC-ranked Bayern Rundfahrt in Germany, blitzing the opposition for victory on stage five.
It was his third win of 2014 but was his first really big one. The Irish man, who finished 4th on the opening stage, opened his sprint to the line very early.
But he still got the better of Yauheni Hutarovich of Ag2r, Raymond Kreder of Garmin Sharp and the rest of the peloton at the end of 160km stage in Nuremberg.
So there you have it; nice to see two of his favourite three wins to date are from his early days while he was still mostly racing on home soil and hopefully there's loads more to come.
Superman: Sam Bennett sprints to his third professional victory on the final stage of the 2.HC ranked Bayern Rundfahrt stage race in June, 2014.
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