Sam Bennett has said he has changed his training over the last couple of months as he is about to begin Giro d'Italia 2025, adding he was eyeing stage wins and even wearing the maglia rosa after the opening stage. He believed his "engine is still there".
The Irishman, riding for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, explained his change in training in detail, adding it came about after a deep dive into his performances in recent years.
It has involved a switch to shorter training rides, even though he described himself as an "old school" rider who always liked to get a big base in, with lots of miles, as he prepared for racing.
"In the last three or four years I've been training my sprint more to get speed because we thought I was missing speed in my sprint. But when we did more digging we saw it was torque that I was missing.
Advertisement
"So we had to build more torque and power into the speed. To get that it was a lot more shorter rides. I'm used to a bit more... 'old school'. I want to do more hours on the bike, a bigger base, because I think the fundamentals of cycling don't really change.
"I don't really miss the endurance because, at the minute, at my age, it's something that's pretty much built in. We'll see how it goes. So far it's been going quite well, I've had some good results so it should be good."
Already this year Bennett has won four races; two stages at Tour de la Provence in February and two at Région Pays de la Loire Tour last month. However, he felt his best sprint - something stickybottle has explained in recent weeks - was when he placed 2nd to Jonathan Milan (Lidl Trek) on the final stage of Tirreno Adriatico in March.
"He's top dog at the minute and I was testing him right up to the line," Bennett said of that battle with Milan into San Benedetto del Tronto. "I didn't really feel good that day and I still had the legs. I felt I really had speed that day, I was just missing a bit of torque, pulling power into the headwind. And then the gear I chose… So I think it gave me confidence."
However, he also said winning was key and he took confidence from his victories so far this season, adding - at 34-years-old - he was as determined as ever.
Enduring will, and hunger, to win
Related News
"I still want to win at the World Tour, I still want to win here," he said, adding his second win at Région Pays de la Loire Tour was uphill and came after a stage where he raced hard on terrain that did not suit him. "It showed the strength is there. And to watch the numbers afterwards was quite nice."
Bennett won his first Grand Tour stage at the Giro back in 2018, when he claimed three victories. There followed a glorious Tour de France in 2020 when he won two stages and the green jersey, ending Peter Sagan's reign. But then knee injuries followed before Bennett roared back to form with two stage wins at La Vuelta in 2022.
He pointed out "it's been a while" since that last Grand Tour stage win in 2022, which was also his last World Tour win. But he still believed he could do it again.
"It would be quite nice and it would also back up the changes that we've made in the last couple of months.. to show that we are going in the right direction. It would show that I'm still here," he said.
The opening stage on Friday in Albania - some 160km from Durrës to Tirana - features a cat 2 climb and then two late cat 3 ascents, with a total of 1,900m elevation gain on the day.
Depending on those stages were raced - how hard the pace was pushed in a bid to get rid of the sprinters - he felt he may be able to cope with the climbing.
It would be fantastic and "a career highlight" to win the opening stage, and wear the pink jersey. While he would definitely try to win it, he felt stage 4, into Lecce, was perhaps the first obvious chance for sprinters.
And though he would also like to win the points jersey, there may be some hilly stages where Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) would have a better chance of surviving the climbs and making it to the finish.
"The first objective is to get a stage win, that has to be the main priority," he said. "You can't be wasting energy trying to win intermediate sprints and then walk away with no points jersey and no stage win. You have to have something.
"So the main thing is to get the stage win. You keep the jersey in mind, you collect a little bit. And once you get that stage win, if (the points jersey) is still there, in contention, you look at it and re-evaluate."
He said his lead-out would be Stan Dewulf, Dries De Bondt and Tord Gudmestad, in that order, and he felt he had very strong support to help him win stages.
