Sam Bennett has gotten his tenure with his new team, Deceuninck-QuickStep, off to the best possible start with victory on stage 1 of the Tour Down Under.
The Carrick-on-Suir man was best in the bunch sprint into Tanunda after 150km.
He got a perfect lead-out from his team; Michael Mørkøv the last man to take him close to the line before Bennett pulled the trigger and took a brilliant victory.
Bennett won the stage from Jasper Philipsen (UAE-Team Emirates) and Erik Baška (Bora-hansgrohe), with Elia Viviani (Cofidis) in 4th place.
The Irish winner, who won in his national champion's jersey, said the team had done a fantastic job for him, with all of them playing a role and contributing to what he said was a great team effort.
Advertisement
Related News
It was a great way for the Irish cyclist to start his two-year contract with the team; an early win settling the nerves.
That will hopefully give him the confidence to go on and take more wins, perhaps even doing so in coming days.
He won today after the riders completed five laps of a 30km circuit with a climb each lap.
Sam Bennett now holds both the race lead and the points classification jersey going into tomorrow's stage 2; some 135.8km from Woodside to Stirling.
More to come.
Topics
