COVER FEATURE: SAM BENNETT
After winning two stages and the green jersey at the 2020 Tour de France, including the sprinters’ blue riband stage in Paris, Sam Bennett has become the man to beat in the bunch finishes. But as he tells Procycling, he doesn’t need to shout about it
“In a race, there’s just a switch flicked and I’m a different guy altogether”
Stereotype dictates that sprinters are the biggest characters in cycling. These are the riders who win the most, and so it’s no surprise that bravado, egocentrism and arrogance are traits typically associated with the fastest finishers. Sprinters are the alphas. They need to be fearless, fast and a bit furious to survive, and even more so if they want to thrive. In the blur of a sprint battle, the difference between winning and losing can come down to the millimetres of a mistimed bike throw, the touch of an elbow or the split second of hesitation in which a pathway to the line closes forever. The margins for error are low which is why the emotions run high.
Sam Bennett has always contradicted this notion. The Irishman can lay claim to being the top sprinter in the world right now, but his on-the-bike attributes don’t match his off-the-bike manner, where he’s more laid-back gent than gladiator. He’s more likely to be found making conversation with a rival than lambasting them after a finish. Any hot-headed temperament he has disappears when he steps off the bike.
Bennett further endeared himself to the cycling world last year when he won his first Tour de France stage in Île de Ré on day 10 of the race. He couldn’t hold back the tears as the emotion of the occasion, and achievement, took hold in the post-race interview. Here was a rider who, on the verge of turning 30, had finally won in cycling’s biggest race. It was one of the most human moments of the Tour. Two weeks later he rode into Paris wearing the green jersey, having comprehensively dethroned Peter Sagan in the competition the Slovak had made his own over the last eight years, before emphatically winning on the ChampsÉlysées, becoming only the fifth rider to do so wearing green.
It’s a trend that’s continued into 2021. By the time we speak in late April, Bennett has five wins, the joint highest in the peloton and the most of any sprinter. Still, he shakes his head when we comment that we know he won’t be so bold as to state that he’s the fastest rider in the world right now. That’s just not Bennett’s style.
“I’ll never say I’m the fastest in the world and I don’t believe it. But to be honest it’s one of those things I tell myself, okay, I don’t care. And it doesn’t matter whether I am the fastest in the world or not the fastest in the world.
I just have to get to the line first,” he says. “Sprinting is not just about being a fast sprinter; you have to be strong, you have to be positioned, there’s so much more that goes into it. I’m oversimplifying it, but it is just about getting to the line first. It really doesn’t matter who is the fastest or not.”
Bennett’s default mode is more selfdeprecation than cocksure, and he reverts to a joke or brush off whenever he feels he may be getting ahead of himself. On cue, he continues: “Maybe I say it because if I sprint against anyone in training they beat me,” he says with a laugh. “When I was through the ranks, in each team I’ve gone to there are probably five to 10 guys who can beat me in a one-on-one sprint. But in a race, there’s a switch flicked and I’m a different guy altogether.”
What was perhaps most striking about the aftermath of Bennett’s first Tour stage win however, was the complete disbelief that he had won at all. The footage confirmed he had beaten Ewan, but Bennett wasn’t taking any chances. He spent minutes pacing, asking teammates and down the radio whether the victory was his or not, before he dared celebrate. In the weeks after the Tour, Bennett spoke of feeling “imposter syndrome” over whether he was good enough to be leading Deceuninck-Quick Step - the premier sprint team in cycling - at the race. And after waiting 10 days for the win, he was starting to worry it would never come at all. It seemed the Tour success helped Bennett find a bit of missing self-belief. How much of a role does confidence play with Bennett?
“I get confidence in the training I’ve done, when I know I’ve done my training to the best of my ability, I know it’s good enough to be there or thereabouts. Then you have to go in and race and when it’s happening, the confidence grows more and more. But then you’re only as good as your last race in cycling,” Bennett says.
“I get a lot of confidence in my preparation. I don’t think you’ll ever hear me go, ‘Oh yeah, I’m good,’ or ‘I feel great.’ I always underplay it. I don’t know, sometimes it might be a cultural thing as well. In Ireland you’re not allowed to talk highly of yourself or you’re arrogant. Sometimes people might have mistaken my honesty for, maybe not weakness but being unconfident. I don’t think I’d be where I am if I didn’t believe I could do it.”
While off the bike Bennett might downplay his form or his ability, when he’s on the bike, in the heat of a sprint, something takes over.
“I think it does come out at times, especially when I’m coming into the last kilometre. Like, I want people to feel my presence. I’m not going to be a pushover, I will be a strong character when I need to be. But the rest of the time I don’t need to be. I don’t have to prove anything.
“A lot of the time in cycling, you spend so many hours on the road with these guys, it’s better to have friends than enemies. I think cycling is different to other sports, where you don’t have to psych each other out, because at the end of the day it’s up to the legs whether you have it or not at the end. There is confidence there, I just don’t have to go around saying it.”
Bennett’s trajectory to the top of sprinting has been far from linear. That may be part of his reluctance to shout about his successes now, because he’s more aware than most that fortunes can quickly change. He became the youngest ever rider to win a stage of the Rás, aged 18, in 2008, but his formative U23 years were riddled with bad crashes and injury, the worst being a head-on collision with a car in 2009 and knee
injury in 2013. He was on the verge of quitting cycling when his breakthrough victory at the Tour of Britain in 2013 landed him a pro contract instead. Bennett’s always lagged a few years behind his peers because of those setbacks. He was 23 when that contract offer from NetApp finally came, but he didn’t move up to the WorldTour until 2017, when he was 26, and Bora-Hansgrohe came on board as title sponsors of the German team. His first WorldTour win came that year at Paris-Nice.
Compare that to his nearest rivals today and it’s a stark contrast. Most of the sprinters today have been in the WorldTour from age 20 or 21, gaining experience and knowledge that Bennett wasn’t. For Bennett, his progression has always been as much about getting the opportunity at the biggest races.
“My biggest step was when Bora Argon 18 went to Bora-Hansgrohe and went to WorldTour and brought all the knowledge and staff in, and I won my first WorldTour race, because of all of this knowledge and tech. I suppose that is opportunity in itself. That opportunity didn’t come until later in my career, and that knowledge didn’t come until later in my career. And it was about chasing opportunities, and being in an environment where I had a clear run in front of me and I could pick the race programme, that’s the biggest thing,” he says.
“But I think whenever the chances came I was always ready, I was always supported, I always did the best of my ability to be ready with the knowledge I had and I was always willing to learn. And the more that came the more that progressed. And then also because
I had to fight so hard, it was all character building. I appreciated every opportunity that did come and I suppose I’ve never got comfortable in my position. I always wanted to grow as a rider, because I know how hard it is to get here. So that’s why, even now, I’ve won some nice races but I’m still chasing a lot.”
Moving to Deceuninck-Quick Step in 2020 has been the quantum leap forward. Rather than compete for race starts with Peter Sagan and Pascal Ackermann as he had at Bora, Bennett became the team’s unequivocal number one sprinter. That in itself surely had an effect. He was given a full lead-out train for the first time in his career, rather than relying on surfing the wheels in a race finale as he typically did before. He also had the backing of the world’s most successful sprint team, and was given a programme made up of the world’s biggest races - not least the Tour, where he hadn’t started since 2016. Even doing two grand tours last year, the Tour and the Vuelta a España, was new territory. It all explains why, at 30 years old, Bennett doesn’t yet feel he’s hit his physical peak.
“I do still see areas that I need to improve on, and sometimes I mightn’t have the answers, but I need to go away and try new training methods or new things to fix it. So I’ll always try to keep learning and try to keep improving. I know I’m 30 and that’s quite old as a sprinter, but I feel I’m almost three years behind because I had so many injuries at the beginning. I feel like I should be 27 but I’m 30,” he says.
“Maybe I should have all this information already. But I think I have a bit to improve on, just fitness and training methods, I’m still learning.”
Acommon theme that comes up in our interview is Bennett’s analytical mindset. When he was younger, he watched videos of Robbie McEwen, to see how he surfed the wheels in a bunch sprint, and in the early years of his career he regularly watched his own performances back to see how he moved around. He even watches videos of his rivals, to see how they race, though watching sprints is no substitute for being in those battles and learning through the feeling in the bunch.
“When I race you never see me race with glasses that have a frame on the end of the lens, because I need to see in my peripheral vision who is behind me. So when I look down I will know the wheel or the shoes or the forks, and I know who exactly is behind me and then I can make a decision on how I will sprint off that,” he says. “I will know; do I go later to the line, earlier if I need to build up the power to the line, or if I kick hard and then just try and hang on. I’ll make these decisions based on who is around me, as well. There’s a lot that goes hand in hand with watching it and what you feel and who is around you. It’s important to have as much information as possible so you can make the best decision possible.”
Even when Bennett wins, his mind analyses whether he did something which stopped him winning by more.
“Normally I’m so focused on the next thing, I keep driving forward and maybe sometimes I should reflect and see
I have come a long way. I suppose maybe I wouldn’t be where I am if I didn’t have that drive, and if I wasn’t that hungry. For some reason I can never relax, I can never be happy with what I have. I always want more,” he says, then adds, with another laugh, “Maybe I’m just greedy.”
“I want people to feel my presence. I’m not going to be a pushover. I will be a strong character when I need to be. But the rest of the time I don’t need to be”
The double victories at the UAE Tour and Paris-Nice in February and March got Bennett’s 2021 underway as planned, but it was his performances at the Belgian classics which followed that were the best indication of how good his form is. His win at Brugge-De Panne was his first WorldTour level one-day race win, something he said he’s been chasing for a long time, and while 55th place at Gent-Wevelgem doesn’t look like much to shout about, it was one of his most impressive rides to date. Bennett was part of the elite group that went clear early in the race, surviving through crosswinds and cobbles before being one of the last riders standing after the final ascent of the Kemmelberg. He blew due to mistimed over-fuelling, which led to him throwing up mid-race, then bonking.
It’s a race sprinters like Bennett often don’t even dare to try these days because the route is so demanding, along with De Panne and semi-classic KuurneBrussels-Kuurne, another traditionally deemed sprinter-friendly race now dominated by one-day race specialists. Bennett used to struggle to get to the finish in fresh enough condition to sprint, and his training has always been constructed around building his strength. The effect today is that his engine is his biggest asset over his rivals, he believes, and it’s why he was able to race deep into the finale in Belgium. His flourish this spring has given him a new appetite to return and target the classics more.
“I definitely in the future would really like to target the classics, especially this year when I was in a Belgian team at the Belgian races, I really got the atmosphere. Okay, you’re missing the crowds at the races, but they are special races and I think they are races I could do well in. I don’t know if I could win any, but I think I could ride a really good race,” he says. “The races when you are going bad, they are horrible. But when you have any bit of good form they are really enjoyable, they’re a lot of fun because there’s something happening all the time and you have to stay concentrated. I just have to get good form.”
But the most important goal now is to spend the next few months readying himself for the Tour. Nothing else matters more than winning stages and maybe defending his green jersey. In a team like Deceuninck-Quick Step, winning is an intrinsic part of the mindset, and he doesn’t want to consider anything else.
“I have to get a stage there,” he says. “If I don’t win a stage in the Tour it’s failure, and that’s pressure. But I have to do it, I have to get at least one stage. Obviously I want to go for the green again, but it takes from getting stage wins.”
Whether or not the green jersey comes his way again in 2021 remains to be seen, and Bennett points to riders such as Sagan and Wout van Aert who are sure to be in the way. Everyone is beatable - Bennett’s slaying of Sagan in the Tour last year was proof of that - but to beat Sam Bennett in top form, as he has been the last year, will take some doing.
And while Bennett might not be bold and brash, he is still a sprinter, and winning is what counts most. Some traits you will never change, no matter who the rider is. “There is that confidence that the more success that I have, the more I say, okay, I can do this, that and the other,” Bennett says. “But I have to train and respect the other guys I go against. They are training hard too but if I work everything right and if I’m there at the final I’ll have a pretty good chance.”
“I have to get a stage. If I don’t win a stage in the Tour it’s failure, and that’s pressure. But I have to do it. I have to get at least one stage”