Sam Bennett is set to get his 2022 season underway at the
upcoming UAE Tour, where he will face off against some of the other biggest
names in the sprint game.
It will be Bennett’s first race since rejoining
Bora-hansgrohe after two years away from the German team with Deceuninck-QuickStep, during which he won two
Tour de France stage wins and the green jersey, among a series of major
victories.
Bennett had been provisionally penciled in to ride Tour
of Oman, though his team told stickybottle he was never confirmed for that race
and they had decide he would skip it in favour of continuing to train.
The Carrick-on-Suir man has tended to hit the ground
running in recent years, opening his account early and winning often through
the season.
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This time around Bennett is coming back from a period of
injury after he last year damaged his knee before the Tour de France, which he
was forced to miss. While he returned to the peloton for a small number of
races towards the end of last year, he did so working for others and abandoned
all of the events.
However, since then Bennett has had months to recover and
prepare properly and once his injury is fully behind him, as he insists, then
he should be expected to get out of the blocks quickly and get some wins on the
board.
While his season preparations have continued in recent
weeks, some of the men he will clash with in four sprinters’ stages at UAE Tour
have been racing and taking their first wins of the season.
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Mark Cavendish (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) will be on the start line when the
race starts on Sunday. He comes into the event after winning four stages at the
Tour de France last year and the green jersey.
The
Manx rider got his season underway at the Tour of Oman, where he was 2nd on the
opening stage and won stage 2. He also would have likely won yesterday’s final
stage but for being impeded in the sprint by one of stage winner Fernando
Gaviria’s UAE Team Emirates lead-out riders.
Dylan Groenewegen
(BikeExchange-Jayco) is also set to ride UAE Tour and having left Jumbo
Visma for his new employers in the off-season, the Dutch rider already looks in
good form.
He has had a difficult period in his career since causing
a major crash at the Tour de Pologne in August, 2020, for which he served a
nine-month suspension.
However, he has already gotten his season on the road
with a brace of stage wins at Saudi Tour, where he also won the points
classification.
Elia Viviani is another sprinter who looks back on track after changing teams; from Cofidis back to Ineos Grenadiers. He claimed stage 2 Tour de la Provence at the weekend and also went close to taking a victory at Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana the week before last.
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Fenix) will also look to open
his account for 2022 at UAE Tour where, like Bennett, he will open his season.
The young Belgian rider is still emerging as a top tier sprinter. However, he
took nine wins last year, including two stages at La Vuelta and victory in Scheldeprijs, and
still aged just 23 years, his career should continue to build in the year
ahead.
Finally, Arnaud Demare (Groupama FDJ) will also be on the
hunt for wins at UAE Tour. The French sprinter had an exceptional season in
2020 and while his efforts last year were more muted, he is capable of hitting
the heights again.
