Sam Bennett and Ryan Mullen have been brought into Bora-hansgrohe as a partnership for the sprints, though they will not make their season debut together for their new team.
Both Mullen and Bennett had been provisionally earmarked to ride Saudi Tour, which begins tomorrow. However, while Mullen has been confirmed to ride, Bennett will miss the race in favour of delaying his return to competition.
He has effectively not raced at his top level since last May as he suffered an injury in the run-up to the Tour de France and missed most of the remainder of the season.
While the Carrick-on-Suir man returned to racing for the final weeks of the 2021 campaign, he did so working for others rather being in the mix for victories himself.
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Given his prolonged absence from performing at his top level, Bora-hansgrohe is opting to continue with his training at present, rather than riding Saudi Tour.
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Bennett was this week expected to make first appearance for Bora-hansgrohe since leaving in late 2019 and joining Deceuninck-QuickStep. He had been billed as one of the main riders to watch at Saudi Tour.
However, his team told stickybottle while the Irishman had been listed as a possible starter in Saudi Tour, his participation there was never confirmed. Instead, he was provisionally penciled in to ride the race in a bid to keep his options open before now deciding not to travel to the Middle East for the race.
In his absence, Mullen and Danny van Poppel – who has also been brought into Bora-hansgrohe as part of the new train for Bennett - still go to the race. They are joined on the team by Matteo Fabbro, Lennard Kämna, Martin Laas, Jordi Meeus and Belgian 18-year-old neo pro Cian Uijtdebroeks.
With a number of sprint stages and stages 2 and 4 over hillier terrain, Van Poppel, Laas and Meeus are all capable of getting into the mix in the sprints while Kämna looks like the best GC asset in the line-up.
