No place in Tour de France for Sam Bennett as NetApp Endura reveals line up for debut

Despite his four victories this year, NetApp Endura have put Sam Bennett's future career before their immediate needs and will not stick the first year pro into the Tour de France when the team make their debut next week.

By Gerard Cromwell

There will be no dream debut at the Tour de France this year for Irish first-year professional Sam Bennett; the Carrick-On-Suir man being omitted from NetApp Endura’s line-up when their team was announced today.

Although Bennett has taken an incredible four victories thus far in his debut season, NetApp have opted to rest their young talent rather than see him tackle the world’s biggest bike race in his first season

There was a possibility that Bennett would make the team if leader Leopold Koenig had not recovered from a knee injury, suffered early in the season, and the squad went into the race solely to target stage wins.

With Koenig back on form and finishing fourth overall in Bayern Rundfahrt and 11th at the Criterium du Dauphine, the team will be based around their star climber.

The Czech rider won a stage and finished ninth overall on his Grand Tour debut at last year’s Vuelta a Espana.

“The first goal we’ve set for ourselves is for Leo Koenig to finish in the top 15 of the general classification,” said team manager Ralph Denk of the team's aspiration for their first Tour.

“We’re assigning four climbers: de la Cruz, Huzarski, Machado and Mendes to offer him support.

“In addition, we also intend to join in the battle for a stage. With Barta and Dempster, as well as our German veterans Schillinger and Voss, we also have some very good options for the rather profiled stages.”

Although sure to be disappointed to be left out, Bennett admitted honestly to stickybottle previously that it would be a tough task to complete a Grand Tour in his first year.

“I know I’m getting up in sprints,” Bennett said.

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“But it’s different riding a stage race like that. It’s a different level. The guys are so much stronger.

"I’m sprinting fairly well but I still have to work on getting a big engine to do a race like that and the team have so many riders that can do a good ride there.

“They’re all strong enough to finish it and finish it well so I think they’d probably favour the guys that can get through the Tour well rather than putting me in a box. I think they’d want to look after me a bit.”

Bennett’s supporters will point to his four victories so far in his debut season, plus his stage win in last year’s Tour of Britain.

They will argue that, as well as his win in a Belgian kermesse on Sunday, his victories in the Clasica de Almeria in March, the Rund um Köln in April and this month’s fifth stage of the Bayern Rundfarht should have given him the chance of starting the Tour.

However, with many teams in the past having ruined the careers of young riders by heaping pressure and expectation on them and starting them in races they are not ready for, it is good to see NetApp-Endura not going down the same road with Bennett, whose career in the big time is only in its infancy.

The team’s main races leading up to the Tour were the aforementioned Tour of Slovenia and Critérium du Dauphiné.

Bennett’s absence from both events and his much lighter race programme of late compared to his team mates strongly suggested the team decided weeks ago not to enter him in the Tour.