Following on from his crash on stage one of the Tour de France and his struggle to stay in the race, Sam Bennett has shown that he is over the worst of his injuries by contesting today’s sprint finish.
On today’s 208.5 kilometre stage from Montélimar to Villars-les-Dombes Parc des Oiseaux, the Irish rider was 12th in the bunch sprint won by Mark Cavendish (Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka).
Afterwards, he gave a very honest interview on Audioboom, where he outlined how nervous he has been since his big crash and just to be able to contest was a massive confidence boost.
“The guys, looked after me really well coming up into the final k’s and then Shane was behind me Shane (Archbold) was there in the final and I let Katusha slip on his wheel which was a mistake by myself,” said Bennett.
“I thought maybe I could get on Kristoff’s wheel easily and then there was a little bit of a stall, just a tiny bit. I think I tried to be brave in the in the sprint but it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever hard to do in cycling, to go back in a bunch sprint like that after crashing often, like in Belgium and here.”
“Mentally it was really difficult and I got one or two bumps. I tipped the brakes and that cost me five or six places. It was confidence that stopped me from getting a results today.”
“It’ll be easy for people to say “you need to be more aggressive, blah, blah, blah” but honestly as nervous as I am, I think I did well today to be back and I think it’s a stepping stone to be back in the sprint and then again to have confidence to push and shove a little but more.”
“I can’t thanks the guys enough for the job they did. They really looked after me and kept me really safe and at least were kind of a little bit back on track.”
You can listen to the interview here:
Well done lad
go Sam go
Good on you Sam. It,’ll come
Well done Sam, refreshing to heartfelt feelings after a sprint