By Shane Stokes
Sam Bennett’s coach Stephen Barrett has predicted a strong end of season for Sam Bennett, starting with the Renewi Tour this week.
“The plan now with him is Renewi Tour, and then after that he has some couple of one day races. He's capable of winning,” Barrett told stickybottle in recent days.
“I know Renewi Tour has pretty much the best sprinters in the world there, but we'll be going there again with the same motivations every race we would with him.
“The aim is to win. He's has been training well at the moment, which is good.”
Barrett has coached Bennett since last autumn, with the Carrick on Suir sprinter transferring to Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale from Bora-Hansgrohe and seeking a fresh start.
2024 has been mixed, with many solid performances but less victories than he had been seeking.
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He clocked up four stage wins plus the overall in the Four Days of Dunkirk plus a second place on a stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné, but had frustration at the Tour de France.
He missed out on his goal of a stage win there, netting fourth, sixth and ninth on stages, with the best of those finishes coming one day before he withdrew from the race.
That was less than Bennett and Barrett had expected before the race, and was a blow after a four year wait to return to the Tour.
His coach explained what went wrong.
“He was a step below where he was in Dunkirk and even Dauphiné,” he said. “After Dauphiné he was sick for four days and had to take pretty much a week off the bike after the race, which was never ideal.
“The funny thing is, even though he was a little bit under where he was previously due to the sickness, he still had to capacity to win. And we saw he was there or thereabouts.
“He was playing around in the top five, in the top ten. But in the Tour de France if you are missing a little bit you have to have a lot of luck. And yeah, unfortunately, we didn't get the luck on a lot of those days.”
That luck ran out on stage 17, the day he was a non-finisher.
“Sam had serious stomach issues,” Barrett said. “He was really quite sick. We did a big mountain day, and on the way back on the bus, he had some extreme vomiting and some extreme issues. Unfortunately he couldn’t get any food in, and that was a day when he burned almost 6000 calories. He couldn't get any food in.
“The next day then, he was empty. He got through that again, but it was a battle. When you have to go so deep in the Tour, and then you can't get food in to replenish yourself, it was always going to be difficult.”
“It was a tough race for him. Disappointing for us, for the team.”
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Bennett’s withdrawal from the Tour was followed by several weeks away from competition. He returned at the Tour de Pologne, where he finished a fine second on stage four.
However he experienced similar issues there, and another stomach-related withdrawal.
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“Again we had a problem where he got some food poisoning in Poland, which was a real pity. Because you got another glimpse of where he was on the fourth stage when he came second to Olav Kooij in the sprint.
“It was arguably one of his better sprints this year, where he showed a very good turn of speed. And a lot of the best sprinters were behind him, guys like Mads Pedersen and Tim Merlier.”
Bennett withdrew on stage seven, the final stage. Barrett said he recovered and then got some good training in since in and around Monaco.
The Renewi Tour begins Wednesday with an undulating stage to Grote-Spouwen. The five days of competition include a flat time trial, and at least two days suited to bunch gallops.
He has a limited amount of racing days remaining this year and chasing wins is crucial.
“For Sam, it is just about getting that momentum,” Barrett said.
“We had the momentum in Dunkirk, and it kept going a bit in Dauphiné. We lost a bit of momentum in the Tour. We had a chance to get some momentum in Poland, but the plan now with him is Renewi Tour.
“He’s capable of winning there.”
One race where he has shone in the past is the Tour of Britain. However while there will be a Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale presence there, it will be the development team rather than Bennett’s WorldTour squad.
He will instead do a series of one day events, namely the GP Isbergues on September 15, then the Kampionshap van Vlaanderen five days later.
They will likely be followed by the Paris-Chauny (September 22nd), Binche-Chimay-Binche (October 1st), and Paris Tours on October 6th.
Barrett hopes for some successes.
“He’s bounced back well. We hope he has more than a couple of victories left in the locker for the rest of this year.
“We are already half-thinking about 2025. We’ve begun planning some stuff.
“The goal for him is to get some wins again. And then you have a good break of the winter. Then you have to reset with some new ambitions, new teammates, new goals for 2025. That’s the big plan, yeah.”
The talk of new goals raises the inevitable question. Do they still including aiming for more victories at the Tour de France?
“Yes, of course. That’s always for him how he sees it,” Barrett said of his big targets.
“The goal for him is still the biggest races, to try to get a win.”
However at this point in time, a Tour ride in 2025 doesn’t appear to be locked in.
“Next year we will analyse the parcours when they come out. If it is Giro, Tour… the goal will for sure be for him to go back to the biggest races and get a win.
“The Tour de France is of course a possibility, if the route suits him. And we can put a team also to better support him, with a few more guys who can set him up in the sprints. That’s obviously very important for the Tour.
“So that’s the plan with Sam.”
