With video: Sam Bennett pulls another massive result out of the bag at Scheldeprijs

Sam Bennett has had an excellent start to his first professional season and followed it up with another great result at Scheldeprijs in Belgium today.

By Gerard Cromwell

Sam Bennett has once again pulled a massive result out of the bag, the Carrick-On-Suir sprinter finishing fifth in today’s Scheldeprijs classic in Belgium.

Just three days after his WorldTour classic debut at the Tour of Flanders, Bennett was back in action for his NetApp Endura squad today.

The 200km race from Antwerp to Schoton has been won by the likes of Tom Boonen and Mark Cavendish in the past and is known as ‘the sprinters’ classic’ and fast man Bennett had earmarked the race for a good result earlier in the week.

An early breakaway group containing Alessandro Bazzana (United healthcare), Luke Rowe (Sky), Dmitriy Gruzdev (Astana), Jan Ghyselinck (Wanty Groupe Robert), Andrea Fedi (Neri Sottoli) and Ivan Balykin (Rusvelo) built up a lead of over five minutes on the peloton.

With the sprinters’ teams merging on the front, and the gap down to just over a minute with 10km to go, Rowe attacked solo in last gasp bid for glory but the move was in vain and the breakaways were caught in the last 3km.

Bennett’s NetApp Endura squad brought their young Irish sprinter to the front in the final two kilometres, with the ever reliable Zak Dempster depositing Bennett into the sprint line with around 800metres to go.

There was no stopping German powerhouse Marcel Kittel however as the Giant-Shimano sprinter started his gallop early and easily beat Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) for his third Scheldeprijs win in a row.

Danny Van Poppel of Trek Factory Racing took third while multiple Grand Tour stage winner Alessandro Petacchi of Omega Pharma Quickstep finished just ahead of Bennett for fourth place.

Once again, first year professional Bennett has shown that he is capable of taking on the fastest sprinters in the world.

He will ride his first ever Paris-Roubaix on Sunday and, on current form, don’t be surprised if he is challenging for stage wins at the Tour de France come July.

You can watch the last 3km of today's race below.