Time to turn back the clock. It is now five years since Sam Bennett captured the green jersey at the Tour de France, and three since his last grand tour stage wins.
The Irish sprinter lines out in the Giro d’Italia on Friday determined to get back to the top, and is relying on a rejigged training programme to rediscover his best form.
“I changed the training quite a bit the last month or two,” he told reporters this week. “In the last three, four years I’ve been training my sprint more to get speed, because we thought that I was missing that. But when we did more digging, we saw that it was [actually] torque that was missing. So we had to build more torque and power into the speed.”
Now 34 years of age, Bennett is in the final year of his current contract with the French Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale team. His desire to secure a new deal is a motivation for him, but so too his wish to get back to the top.
Gerry Thornley: Ireland deserve top billing in Lions touring party to Australia
Sonia O’Sullivan: Sometimes you need to go off the beaten track to find that timeless run of your life
Skorts v shorts: ‘They’re awkward, and if it’s your time of the month it’s just not comfortable’
Dave Hannigan: Why Bill Belichick’s relationship with woman 49 years younger has America rapt
Bennett has had a frustrating few years since the highs of the 2020 Tour de France. He appeared to have the sprinting world at his feet then and for several months afterwards, collecting two stages plus the green jersey in that Tour, as well as multiple other successes.
Things started going awry with a knee injury in early June 2021. Sidelined from racing for several months, he worked his way back up to taking the opening two stages in the 2021 Vuelta a España. However a dose of Covid took him out of that race. He has not been back to the same level since.
“It’s been a while,” he admitted this week, speaking of stage wins in grand tours. “So to get winning again would be something that would be quite nice. It would also back up the changes we’ve made the last couple of months, to show that we are going in the right direction. It would just show that I’m still here.”
So what changes has he made? The Carrick-on-Suir rider said the emphasis has moved away from a lot of endurance work and towards doing some shorter, more intense training rides. Building power is a higher priority now, something he feels he was lacking earlier this year when he finished second on a stage of Tirreno Adriatico.
He was head-to-head with the young sprinter Jonathan Milan there, with the Italian just holding him off to the line.
“I was just missing a bit of torque, a bit of pulling power into the headwind and the gear I chose,” Bennett told The Irish Times. “It gave me confidence. Milan’s top dog at the minute, and I was testing him right up to the line.”
And now to the Giro. Friday’s opening stage of the race includes one second category climb halfway through the stage to Tirana in Albania, and then two third category ascents closer to the line.
It is unclear if Bennett and the other sprinters will be able to stick with the general classification riders and the punchy all-rounders but, if not, next Tuesday’s fourth stage to Lecce is much flatter. It is much more likely to result in a big gallop.
Other opportunities will follow, giving him opportunity to turn things fully around and to prove that he still has what it takes.
“I still have that hunger,” he insisted. “I still want it as bad. I still get that pain in my gut every time I lose a race, so I know the want is still there.
“I just have to try and go out and get a few stages.”
