Sam Bennett came to a near standstill on the final climb of Paris-Nice stage 6 today; the Irishman almost slowing to a stop after putting in a huge effort on the hard incline up to the finish line.
In what very much looked like a dry run for Milan-Sanremo, where he will have to hang in on the Poggio before what will hopefully be a bunch sprint, Bennett was close to the front as the peloton splintered in the final 2km today.
His Deceuninck-QuickStep team bossed the front of the bunch in the finale in a bid to bring back the last of the breakaway. It finally came down to Florian Sénéchal to keep the pressure on in the final kilometre, where Bennett was at the front one moment before blowing and going out the back.
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The TV camera panned back to the Irishman and the pictures showed just how deep he had dug as he almost stopped on the road such was his drop in pace.
Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) went on to win the stage in a sprint to the line after 202.4km into Biot. Roglic saw off Christophe Laporte (Cofidis, Solutions Crédits) and Michael Matthews (BikeExchange), thus extending his overall lead with two hilly stages to come.
Bennett faded to finish 67th some 2:05 down. But that difficulty in the final kilometre will not concern him. He has already won two stages and today's finale will have been a good work out towards the kind of effort he will need to hopefully win Milan-Sanremo.
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