Sam Bennett was boxed in and played no part in the sprint that settled the opening stage of the Tour of Oman won by Andre Greipel (far left in white kit)
Nicolas Roche and Sam Bennett both finished safely in the main bunch at the end of today’s opening stage of the Tour of Oman.
Bennett crossed the line in 23rd place for his NetApp Endura team while Roche (Tinkoff-Saxo) finished just a few places back in 47th in his first race of the year.
The stage was won by German sprinter Andre Greipel of Lotto Belisol, despite him being dropped out of the lead group in the strong crosswinds with about 25km to go. He regained contact in the final 10km as the peloton stalled slightly before the sprinters’ trains battle for supremacy at the front.
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A winner of two stages last year in Oman, Greipel outgunned Aussie Leigh Howard (Orica GreenEdge) and Italian Nicola Ruffoni to take his fourth victory of the season.
Greipel now leads both the overall classification and the points' classification while Howard takes the best young rider jersey.
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Bennett may have failed to a net a result on the 150km stage from As Suwayq Castle to Naseem Garden to add to his results from the Tour of Qatar last week but he will take a lot of confidence from the team throwing all of its efforts behind him today despite some other good strong riders having come into the team for this week's race.
For example, Zak Dempster has already enjoyed a strong win in Australia this year, taking a victory in the opening round of the Michelton Bay Classic series early last month. However, he was yesterday charged with delivering Bennett to the front of the peloton in today's finale when the rest of the team had done their lead-out train duties.
NetApp-Endura sport director Enrico Poitschke said while the team have worked well for protected rider Bennett, had became boxed in and missed the sprint.
“Today luck didn’t seem to be on our side," he said.
Our guys did a great job preparing the sprint for Sam and kept him in the slipstream for as long as possible. Zak wanted to get him into the right position on the last few meters, but it just didn’t happen. There was no gap that the two could have used to really sprint ahead.
“Although we really can’t be satisfied with the result of this stage, we are pleased with how our guys worked together. Tomorrow there will be another sprinting opportunity. Maybe we’ll have a bit more luck then."
News that Bennett is automatic protected rider this week, at least for the flat stages, is confirmation that the team sees him as one of their key men towards gaining results, even when other fast men like Dempster are in the race line-up.
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