Bennett takes Tour’s green jersey to end a 31-year wait

A THIRD-PLACE finish on stage five of the Tour de France was enough to see Sam Bennett become the first Irishman to wear the green jersey for 31 years.

Although the stage win eluded him once again after being beaten in the sprint by Wout van Aert, Bennett at least did enough to move clear of three-time world champion Peter Sagan in the points classification.

Sagan has dominated the green jersey with seven wins in the points race since 2012, but brilliant tactical riding by Bennett and his Quickstep team saw the 29-year-old overhaul the Slovakian, fourth at the finish line.

Bennett will swap his green and white jersey of Irish national champion for the maillot vert as he becomes the first Irishman to pull on any of the classification jerseys since fellow Carrick-onSuir man Sean Kelly wore green into Paris in 1989.

The sprinter was fourth on stage one before being beaten on the line by Caleb Ewan into Sisteron on Monday but his points tally has been bolstered by two impressive displays in the intermediate sprints.

After getting the better of Sagan on stage four to move level on 83 points, Bennett took the maximum (20) at yesterday’s intermediate sprint with teammate Michael Morkov helping to increase the advantage by sweeping up the points for second, leaving Sagan back in fourth.

Bennett now leads the former world champion by 123 points to 114.

Adam Yates inherited the yellow jersey after Bennett’s Deceuninck-quickstep team-mate Julian Alaphilippe was hit with a time penalty.

Commissaires took 20 seconds off Alaphilippe for an illegal feed inside the final 20km.