By Shane Stokes
Sean Kelly has said that while it is difficult to predict how riders will fare after an extended time away from training and racing, with some struggling to regain their former momentum, that he believes it is more than likely Sam Bennett will be back to his best again next year.
“Sometimes time outs can be a good thing,” Kelly told Stickybottle. “You come back, you are fresh, you have been refreshed. Then other times when you are out of that top level for a while, it can be difficult to get back.
"So there’s that little question mark there for Bennett. Will he get back to the level he was at last year at the Tour de France, the level he was at all through last season, or even at the beginning of this season?
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“He should be able to, but there are no guarantees. We have seen that with riders in the past – they are out for a number of months, they come back and they win the same as if they had never been out. But some come back and they just have difficulty getting back to that level again.”
Stephen Roche is a case in point. The Dubliner won the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the world championships in 1987 but underwent an operation later that year when a knee injury resurfaced.
That saw him sidelined for much of the following season, meaning that he had limited opportunities to race in the rainbow jersey. And while Roche did get back to a high level, he never approached the same success as he had had in 1987.
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Bennett also suffered a knee problem, injuring that joint when his gears slipped while out training. Thankfully he didn’t ultimately need an operation, with the Carrick on Suir rider telling Stickybottle at the national championships that he was able to fix the issue through specific exercises.
“It needed a bit of time,” he said then. “But I remembered the sensations [from before], they really felt like tendonitis. And so then I just started doing eccentric exercises. And within two weeks, I was good. So I lost a lot of time for no reason, I think.”
He was able to ride some races towards the end of the season and will keep building over the winter months so that he has a good season with Bora-hansgrohe. Kelly believes he will draw determination from the criticism Deceuninck-QuickStep team manager Patrick Lefevere made this year.
“I think he will be hungry next year, because going to a new team now he will be really up to prove [something],” said Kelly. “I think after the affair with QuickStep and Lefevere and that, I think he wants to prove a point there that he can still win. When you consider all that, I think he will be back at that high level again.”
He added that the type of rider Bennett is will lend itself to him getting back to the top step of the podium sooner rather than later.
“If you’re a good sprinter and you have that you have that quality, well, then you can win races. You can pick off quite a number of races during the season, because sprinters have more opportunities than, for example, a guy who is a GC rider. I think the sprinters can pick off wins a little bit easier than them.”
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