By Shane Stokes
In what is at first glance a setback but which could ultimately prove to be a boost to his career, Sam Bennett spoke in a very frank manner this week about a heart operation he underwent last November.
Talking at length to Stickybottle on Wednesday in advance of a short team announcement on Thursday, Bennett revealed that he had suffered heart rhythm issues last autumn, and that these may have affected him for several years.
“It was kind of strange, because at the end of the season I wasn’t feeling well. I couldn’t get out the performances, and I couldn’t understand it. I had the offseason, I came back, and then I was having these flutters, palpitations in training. After three or four days training I was away with my previous team at Rouleur Live in London, around November 13th or 14th. In the night while sleeping I had flutters and palpitations.”
Advertisement
Despite those slight symptoms in training, it was his late night sensations which fully brought home the situation to him.
“I didn’t know what was going on. I remembered that I was wearing a Whoop and was able to check the ECG, and it showed me that I had AFib, atrial fibrillation. I rang the team [his new squad Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling], and they were absolutely amazing. They got me straight into specialists in London the next morning.
“I spoke to three different specialists. We decided to go with one in Frankfurt, Germany, then four days or five days later, I had the ablation, which was a success.”
Atrial fibrillation is a condition where the heartbeat becomes irregular and often beats more quickly than normal. It is related to the electrical signals in the heart. Well-trained endurance athletes are amongst those who are more prone to it, due largely to the hypertrophy the heart undergoes with intense exercise.
Bennett explained what ablation is and how it works.
“It’s quite straightforward,” he says. “They go in from the vein of the leg, close to the pelvis, and they burn off the incorrect parts of the heart. They might have to go through a wall of the heart, like to go through [a gap between] the chambers to get to the other side of another chamber.
"But it’s pretty straightforward. Then what they do is they speed up the heart, I think by using adrenaline, and they see if there are any other paths that can cause an irregular heartbeat.
“I’ve heard of some people getting it done while they’re awake. I was asleep, so it was super easy. When you’re stuck in AFib for a few days and you come out on the other side, it was so smooth and so calm.”
Bennett was told it would take his heart three months to completely heal. He was able to return to low-level exercise at the end of November but was unable to train on the road due to the blood thinners he had to take and the related danger if he crashed.
The plan was to keep building up very carefully. However he caught flu after New Year’s and that interrupted his plans.
“They say when you have the flu, it’s not great for the heart. So I was really cautious then and I really backed off.
“Then I went to the training camp, and I was at zero. Really zero. Then we actually had a great week. The progression was really quick, so I was super happy with that.”
"I did feel flutters in sprints"
Bennett has shown extraordinary mental resilience in recent years. He dominated the sprints in 2020 and the first part of 2021, winning some of the biggest races in the sport, including two stages of the Tour de France plus the green jersey.
Injured then in 2021, it took until the 2022 Vuelta before he won another Grand Tour stage. In fact he took two of them, stages two and three, but had to withdrew after stage 9 due to catching Covid.
Since then he’s endured three frustrating years, winning a dozen races but none at WorldTour level. He rode the Tour just once, with a best placing of fourth.
Given Covid’s well-known link with heart issues, does he consider it possible that AFib was what was holding him back during that time?
“I don’t want to be the conspiracy theorist,” he laughs, “but it was from 2022 onwards that there was something going on.
“I don’t know how or what, or if it was this or something else, but there was something. As a cyclist, you’re hyper aware of your body. Maybe too much. It didn’t feel right the last few years. The timeline matches, but I can’t say whether it is or not.
“I discussed it with the specialist and I gave him feedback of what I felt the last two, three seasons. Especially going into sprints. And it’s not a given, but it’s possible that I was having mini episodes.
"Because I always felt something in the sprints. I couldn’t push. I would go into the sprint, and I’d be fine, and I’d go to get off the saddle. I wouldn’t be full of lactate, but I just had to sit back down. It was just super strange.
“He said with the way I went into AFib, my top two chambers were beating twice as fast as the lower two chambers. It’s possible that in the sprints, the top two start going to AFib. Then you lose 30% of the pumping power, you do lose that performance.”
Related News
That decrease in performance certainly squares with what is known about AFib. He won’t fully know if that was the issue until he has a chance to really build form, and until he gets to try himself out in race sprints. Bennett says he doesn’t want to put everything on that idea for now, instead preferring to wait and see.
“But if in the future it shows that was the problem, I’d be super happy to know the reason. I did feel flutters or palpitations in the sprints, but I just thought, ‘oh, good coffee,” he laughs.
"It can be treated"
When Bennett was diagnosed with AFib he and the team carefully considered how to approach it. He could have kept the news to himself, but decided that going public with it may have benefits to others. He wants to get a message across: AFib happens to some athletes, it is treatable, but it is important to get any heart symptoms checked out.
“The main reason why I want to share the stories is because you do hear that this is quite common. A lot of people are having AFib and ablations. With younger cyclists or the general public, there’s a fear of the unknown when it happens. I wanted to share so that they understand it.”
There are of course other more serious heart conditions which pose a bigger threat. But if AFib is diagnosed and treated, it can be relatively straightforward.
“They don’t have to be afraid,” he says. “Once you treat it, you can recover fully and get back as an athlete to top level again. And for a normal person, you can have a long normal life.”
He does have advice on something people can do to make diagnosis more straightforward.
“If I was going to share one message, it is that if people can afford a smart watch that has ECG, that they can catch it in the moment. A lot of the time they might feel something, but they’re not sure. Then they go to a specialist, and they describe it, but they don’t know what’s happening.
“The ECGs [on smart watches] might not be the most accurate thing, but they’re enough for a specialist to see what’s happening and to really go from there. AFib is quite a common thing, but it can really be treated.”
Bennett is far from the first cyclist to be diagnosed with heart arrythmias. Chloé Dygert, Robert Gesink, Nick Nuyens and Zdeněk Štybar are just a few of those who underwent surgery. Each were able to return to the sport.
Bennett tells Sticky Bottle he is aware of many other riders who were similarly affected, although understandably he didn’t want to name them due to their medical privacy. He’s happy to go public himself, and hopes doing so will help others.
"We don't have anything set in stone yet"
Now 35, Bennett is hungry to get back to his best level. He’s been saying that for years but if AFib was indeed an undiagnosed issue in recent seasons, correcting it could prove crucial.
He considers he felt fully himself in just two races in recent years. One was the 2024 Four Days of Dunkirk, where he won four stages plus the overall. The other was that year’s Critérium du Dauphiné. It was very hilly and offered few chances to a sprinter, but he was second on the opening day.
“I felt like myself, but then it just disappeared before the Tour. I don’t know why,” he says. “The start of last year was good too, then it just disappeared. After the Giro, I trained so hard, I did some good work. I hit all my personal bests, from 20 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes, one minute power, but I couldn’t produce it in the race
“It would mean a lot [to get back to his best]. I still get that pain in my gut when I lose a race. It fucking kills me. What’s frustrating is when you’re watching guys in front of you and you’re like, ‘I know I can beat these guys.’ But I’m looking down, I can see my Watts are low and I’m there with them. But I just can’t hit what I know I can hit. That kills me.
“I think what keeps me going is when I get the glimpses of form and I see the numbers are right. I suppose I’m a bit resilient as well. Or else I’m just stubborn,” he laughs.
Bennett plans to keep building gradually. His wife Tara underlines how good the team has been in supporting him and treating him as a human first, an athlete second. They want him to fully recover; the pressure is off.
"We don’t have anything set in stone yet. The team wants to see how I progress,” he says. “If I progress quicker, brilliant. If it’s slower, then I have whatever time I need. For me personally, I want to make a target of middle to end of March, just so that I’m not too relaxed and I have something to chase. If you have too much time, you’ll never get on it. So I just want to put that little bit of pressure on myself to push for that.
“Now it could be the case that something happens here or there and you have to back off, or you get sick, but in general now I’ll just continue working and hopefully the middle to end of March, I can be ready. I’ll then see what the team wants from there.
In terms of goals, he wants to focus on performance and to fully earn his place at the biggest races.
“I just want to hit my best level again. I want to be in the races competing. I don’t want to be making up numbers, getting killed in every race. I want to be at my best level. Then if I reach that, if I hit certain targets, that I get my opportunity in Grand Tours, or whatever it may be.
"But if I’m not at the level, I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. I want to be realistic. I don’t want to take places from other riders who deserve it more than me. I don’t want any gifts, It’s more black and white. I am pretty positive I’ll hit the level, and I’ll be able to show my true colours and race at the top level again.”
Last thoughts on all he has been through with atrial fibrillation. Has going through this experience changed him in any way?
Bennett pauses, considers the question for a moment.
“I think so,” he says. “I think you realize… even though what I had is quite common, and there’s a lot of amazing things we can do on the medical side, we realize people are fragile. And you have a young family that you want to be there for.”
