SAM BENNETT

DEC E UN IN CK-QUICK STEP

Sam is super quick. What I also see in him is, like Ewan, you’ll see these two win on some really difficult finishes, which is different to someone like Groenewegen. Even a kilometre climb, or a 2k drag, or a 500m steep finish like Hatta Dam in the UAE Tour.

It’s not that Bennett and Ewan have more sprint endurance than Groenewegen, but it seems maybe they’ve got a bigger tolerance to lactic acid - on those really difficult finishes they are still in the mix. And Bennet’s entertaining – we don’t know and he doesn’t know when he’s going to have one of those days. Sometimes he’s surprised at winning a really hard race, other days you think he could be among it and he blows and is nowhere. Sprinters are either on or off.

Being on Bora probably put his career back a year or two but at the same time it might have been helpful for him being a little in the shadows to develop. The speed was always there but maybe the rest wasn’t quite there – when it is, you float to the top. Maybe it made him extra hungry for it when he did get there.

What I like about Bennett is that he looks prepared to get in a fight. Every sprinter is like that, but his style is a bit more rough and tumble. He looks comfortable taking the risks, shrugging them off as he goes through, having fun with it.

Now he’s going into a team that’s super organised and has already done it for several guys - Gaviria, Kittel, Cavendish, Viviani, Boonen… He’s got a fantastic opportunity at Deceuninck to really go to the next level. We saw it before when Gaviria left and Viviani had the team to himself - he won a Tour stage and 18 races in a year, and no disrespect to Viviani but I don’t see him as an 18-wins-a-year guy if he’s not on that team.

He’s got a fantastic opportunity at Deceuninck to really go to the next level