EDWARD PICKERING

We’ve got Sam Bennett on the cover of the mag this month, and very happy we are about it too. Bennett’s popular for many reasons. He’s had to graft his way to the top, making incremental improvements year on year until he’s reached a position where there’s a very good case for him to be described as the best sprinter in the world. He’s also very correct as a sprinter - the elbows occasionally come out in the fight for position, but he tends to ride in a straight line to the finish. He’s popular with the press for being an accommodating interviewee - as you’ll see from Sophie Hurcom’s piece on page 32 and as you can probably tell from our cover shots and portraits.

Bennett’s big target for 2021 is to defend the green jersey he won last year at the Tour. And he’s got a good chance of doing it - he’s ticking along nicely with five wins so far in 2021, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t add to that total later this summer.

But the analyst in me wonders if he’ll spend the rest of his life as a sprinter or whether he’ll branch out into the classics. He’s proven himself capable of winning oneday races in Belgium like Brugge-De Panne. But he showed us a glimpse of the possibilities when he made it over the Kemmelberg in the elite lead group at Gent-Wevelgem.

We’re in an era where there’s increasing crossover between cycling’s so-called specialities at the moment. This spring, Wout van Aert became the first rider since, well, that morning, but before Marianne Vos did it, the 1970s to win both Gent-Wevelgem and Amstel Gold - two races which used to attract quite different types of rider. Tadej Pogacar, a grand tour specialist, outsprinted Julian Alaphilippe to win Liège.

If Bennett does branch out, he’ll be following in the wheeltracks of his hometown antecedent Sean Kelly. But for now, a second green jersey would be enough.