By Shane Stokes
Sam Bennett has revealed the reason for his difficult end of season, saying that a heavy fall in the Tour de Pologne in early August left him on the back foot for the remainder of the season.
Bennett was left in a race against time to try to find a contract for 2026, and has explained to stickybottle how close he came in recent months to the end of his career. However, he was finally able to secure a slot with Pinarello-36.5 Pro Cycling and will continue as a professional.
“I fell on the first stage in Poland. That was unfortunate,” he told Stickybottle, explaining that was the latest in a run of tough luck. I started the season good, and I was like, ‘oh, wait till Giro. I’m going to be good there.’
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“Then I got a little bit sick beforehand, didn’t get it right for the Giro. And then all of a sudden, I was like, ‘right, that didn’t work. I have two few months to fix it.’
“I went back to the drawing board, built myself back up. I said ‘right, wait until Poland, I’m gonna to f**king do something there.’ I was going good, and then I crashed on the first stage.”
Bennett suffered a number of injuries, with one to his coccyx the most problematic.
“To be honest it could have been worse when I took the bounce, because that was at 65k an hour. I did three stages, and then the body kind of shut down after that. It was mainly the tailbone.”
He withdrew from the race and hoped to return to form quickly, but instead found himself on the back foot.
“I was like, ‘okay, back to the drawing board.’ Then I tried to get things going again, but the body just didn’t respond after the crash. The whole system just shut down two weeks later. The energy left.
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“Looking back now, I should have just taken a week off or five days off, but when you have one bad day, you’re just like, ‘ah, I just need to push out of it.’ Then you keep testing it and pushing for another couple of weeks, and all of a sudden you go nowhere.”
Bennett withdrew on stage 4 of the Tour of Poland, exiting the race on August 10th. He tried to return ten days later in the ADAC Cyclassics but was a non-finisher. He then competed in the Tour Poitou-Charentes, losing ten minutes on the opening day and then 12 minutes on stage two, before pulling out on day four.
Two further DNFs in the GP de Fourmies on September 14 and the Tour de Vendée kept the pressure on him, leading to fears that he might not get a deal for 2026.
“I just needed a break to go well again. But I couldn’t afford to take the break because it was so close to the end of the season, and I needed a contract,” he explains. “And I wanted to perform for Decathlon, I wanted to get them results.
“Then you end up in a situation where you’re pushing and trying to take maybe one or two days off to push again to see how you are.”
It’s easy to imagine the mental state he was in; he was facing the possible end of his career but also felt he needed to do something big to secure a contract. He was chasing his tail and getting nowhere.
“You waste weeks, you’re in a hole, and the only way out is to take rest. But I didn’t have that luxury, because I wanted to perform. I wanted to give back to the team, I wanted a contract. And then all of a sudden I messed up the end of the year. It’s unfortunate, but it came just from wanting it too much, I suppose.”
Fortunately things worked out well. Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling started talks, a deal was done and he will continue in 2026. But had that opportunity to reunite with former An Post Sean Kelly team manager Kurt Bogaerts not arisen he could well have exited the sport with a string of DNFs.
“I should have more experience than that. But, you know, it was a little bit of pressure,” he laughed.
We’ll have a big interview soon with Bennett. You can see a related interview with new coach Kurt Bogaerts by following this link.
