Sam Bennett (Bora-hansgrohe) went to Sibiu Cycling Tour to get his season back on track and the Irishman has now done that with bells on; winning his second stage of the race today and making it look very easy.
There were just two chance for sprinters in the five-stage race, and now the Carrick-on-Suir rider has won them both, and done so very convincingly. While the Romanian race is a smaller event than Bennett usually competes in, he was under immense pressure to win both stages and it was very important he rose to the challenge.
On today's fourth stage of the UCI 2.1-ranked event - some 97.3km starting and finishing in Sibiu - Bennett once again negotiated a drag up to the line, featuring cobbles or paving, to take the victory. Wearing the blue jersey of points classification leader, he won the stage ahead of Milan Menten and Michael Schwarzmann; the Lotto Dstny riders who were also 2nd and 3rd on the opening stage won by the Irishman.
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Today, Bennett was just behind the Lotto Dstny duo - with Henri Uhlig (Alpecin-Deceuninck Development Team) also in the mix - as the riders approached the final right hander on the drag to the line. The Irish rider accelerated into that corner, making sure he was first to exit, and front that point hit the after burners all the way to the line.
He did not perform a victory celebration today, or on stage 1, and that was perhaps because he was mindful his Bora-hansgrohe team was the only World Tour squad in the race. The field also featured a handful of ProConti teams, though most of the peloton was made up of Continental-level squads.
However, while the composition of the start list meant Bennett was the red hot favourite for the sprint stages, he still had to go and win them. And now that he has two victories in the bag, it should prove a confidence-booster for him as he tries to have a successful second half of the year after being omitted from the Tour de France.
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Bora-hansgrohe last year left Bennett at home as it opted for a general classification line-up to support Aleksandr Vlasov, who finished 5th overall. This year, the team dropped Bennett and opted to take Belgian sprinter Jordi Meeus to the Tour instead of the Irishman; a decision that has not worked well so far at the Tour.
In Romania, Bennett's team mate Maximilian Schachmann won the summit finish stage yesterday, meaning Bora-hansgrohe have won three of the four stages so far - with a short TT to finish the event this afternoon. However, the yellow jersey is held by Matteo Badilatti (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team) going into the final TT stage after he was 2nd and 9th on the summit finishes of stages 2 and 3.
More to come.
