CYCLING

IRELAND’S Sam Bennett lost his overall race lead at the Tour of Turkey yesterday as stage four of the week-long World Tour race saw its only summit finish at Selcuk, WRITES GERARD CROMWELL.

On a punishing 204km stage, non-climber Bennett managed to hold on to the front group over the day’s first-category ascent after

35km and was still in contention on the final climb of the day.

It wasn’ t until just 4 km from the summit finish, where eventual stage winner Diego Ullissi of UAE went clear in a small group, that Bennett began to drift off the pace and the Italian went on to wrest the race leader’s jersey from his shoulders. Upon losing contact on the climb to the finish Bennett sat up, eventually losing

15 minutes to Ullissi at the line. “I thought I’d go a little bit better,” said the Carrick-on-Suir sprinter afterwards. “The climb at the beginning was just too much. Mainly, the heat was getting to me. I couldn’t deal with it and I was getting dropped. My power wasn’t super high but I was just overheating. ”

Although he is now out of the overall hunt for glory, Bennett will wear the green jersey today as he still leads the points classification.