Sean Kelly has said while it was a blow for Sam Bennett to lose the green jersey at the Tour de France to Peter Sagan on today’s stage 7, it could have been much worse for his fellow Carrick-on-Suir man.
Because Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) had a poor final sprint, finishing 13th, he missed valuable points in his battle with Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep) for the points classification.
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“It was a major disappointment,” Kelly said of Bennett
losing the lead in the points classification to Sagan.
“When you look at the terrain today and the conditions;
Sam, he gets over the lumpy stuff quite well. I was surprised he did not make
it into that (front) group.
“We talked about that on the commentary; was he too far
back? If he was too far back… you know Sagan is going to try something on those
sorts of stages.
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“And I’m sure he was well briefed – ‘you have to stay
around Sagan and watch out’ – because he always tries to filter into the
breakaways that are going.
“So I reckon Sam had just a bad day today and he wasn’t
able to match (some other riders) and stay up there because it was a
leg-breaker of a start.
“You could see the riders were in difficulty right away.
Luckily for Sam, we see Sagan had a bit of difficult in the sprint with his
chain and he bumped off a few riders.
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“So he didn’t get big points and Sam is still very much in the race for the green jersey classification," he added on Eurosport's Breakaway analysis show.
Sagan was 2nd at the intermediate sprint today, which Bennett was unable to contest as he was dropped with the other sprinters on the early climb. Furthermore, Sagan also gained points for his 13th placing in the sprint finish.
The points Sagan gained today means he now leads Bennett by nine points in that classification - 129 points for Bennett and 138 for Sagan - having started the stage 12 points behind the Irish cyclist.
Kelly added while Ineos Grenadiers rode very well in the last 35-40km today, splitting the race in the cross-tailwinds, he believed they rode flat-out on the front and should have saved themselves a little instead.
“You ride as a team; you control it on the front but you don’t go 100 per cent at all. You boss the front of the peloton with numbers and keep as many men as you can,” Kelly said of what Ineos Grenadiers should have done.
The way the team rode, Kelly suggested, saw Dylan van
Baarle ride so hard at the front he put his team mates under pressure.
A number of the team's riders then lost their place in the front group and when Richard Carapaz had a mechanical, Ineos Grenadiers only had one rider able to sit up for a moment and wait for him.
Carapaz dropped out of the front group after his mechanical and while he chased alone it was impossible to catch the group again as it was so breezy.
Ineos Grenadiers then asked Jonathan Castroviejo to sit up out of the front group and wait for Carapaz, though they still failed to catch the front group and Carapaz lost 1:21 to the main general classification riders.
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