Sean Kelly believes Sam Bennett's illness-hit Tour de France preparations are starting to hurt him now (Photo: An Post-Chainreaction)
Having come into the Tour de France on the back of illness-hit preparations that saw him miss a number of one-day events and his final stage race before the off, Sam Bennett is paying the price after a tough opening week, Sean Kelly believes.
Speaking about the Bora-Argon 18 team that Bennett rides for, Kelly said some of the riders appeared to be finding the going tough as the race heads for the mountains.
And he believes Tour debutant Bennett is among that group.
“They have big engines, we’ve seen them in this Tour out in the breakaways,” he said of the German-backed ProContinental squad riding its second Tour.
“But it’s about the number of riders you have with the big engines and when you look at the teams here that are going to be top of the classification... there’s a lot of teams here with much stronger (riders) than Bora-Argon. So it’s going to be a battle.
Advertisement
Related News
Bennett in yellow at the Bayern Rundfahrt stage race in Germany in May, where he won two stages. He fell ill shortly after that event and missed his last crucial pre Tour de France competitive outings.
“I’m afraid there are some riders tired as well in that team. There are some we’ve seen who’ve been very active but; looking at Sam Bennett, I think he’s starting to tire in this race.
“He started off not well and it doesn’t look like he’s getting better... he seems to be struggling a bit. But we’ll have to wait and see, they could be the surprise (package) also.”
Kelly added while Bennett scored a top 10 result on the 190.5km stage 7 from Livarot to Fougères last Friday, his fellow Carrick-on-Suir man - who has taken some very strong wins this season - was clearly not at his best.
“He did get up on that occasion but, again, I don’t think we’ve seen the best of him,” Kelly said.
“He certainly did not come to this Tour in his best form. He was sick for a number of weeks and did not race for a long time before the Tour. And I think that’s all taking its effect.”
Topics
