Brilliant Bennett revels in finally grabbing second Rás stage victory
Having burst onto the international scene in 2009 as an 18-year-old with his first ever Rás stage win, the second one has been a long time coming for the now 22-year-old.
Yesterday, he had his whole team to thank for a perfect lead out in the final kilometre which gave him a free run to the line in Listowel and saw him show a clean pair of wheels to the rest of the chasers.
“Ronan (McLaughlin) went first,” a delighted Bennett said. “He took us out of the peloton and hit the front coming towards that sharp corner with about 500m to go. Then Shane (Archbold) hit the corner first and we got the inside line. He kicked out of it and then Nicholas (Vereeken) ramped it up and kept it there to 200m to go and I just kicked. Finally. It’s been so long since I got a win, I’m so happy.”
Up until the final 15km, Bennett and his An Post lead out train had the benefit of having team-mate Sean Downey in the big move of the day and had been given an easier ride in the peloton, as other teams were forced to chase the three in front.
Downey went clear alongside Louth’s Roger Aiken and Dan Barry of the British Node4 Giordana pro team after the first climb of the day at Ballingbrook around 40kms into the 140km stage. This trio were given a maximum lead of six minutes by the peloton and at one point looked like they might survive to battle it out for stage glory.
“I was thinking ‘happy days, this is great’ but after about 100km, my legs just didn’t have that power anymore,” said Aiken. “In the headwind, on the main road with around 20km to go, we were down to 20mph in places and I knew it wasn’t happening and it closed down very quickly in the end. I think we were all tired.”
The other big news of the day was overnight leader Peter Hawkins of the IG Sigma Sport team crashing out — which means Bialabocki is now the new race leader on stage placings with seven others, including third-placed Belfast man Conor McConvey, tied on the same time as the race heads towards the Kerry mountains today.
“Anything can happen tomorrow because it’s a very hard stage with lots of climbs but I’m looking forward to it,” said the Polish race leader. “I’m lighter than I was last year so I’m climbing better but still, there are a lot of guys much lighter than I am.”
As Hawkins headed to hospital with a suspected broken collarbone and Dubliner Aaron Buggle crossed the line with his head and face bandaged from another incident, third placed Conor McConvey spoke of the chaos within the peloton.
“It’s pretty ridiculous to be honest,” said the Synergy Baku rider. “There’s a real lack of respect in the bunch with people smashing through each other and cutting each other up all the time. It gets worse the further back the bunch you go.”
A recent winner of the King of the Mountains title at the Tour of Azerbaijan, McConvey is looking forward to the mountains and hopes to be able to improve on his current position.
“It’s all just been about staying in contention over the past few days without really trying to show yourself,” he said. “Just staying there, being in the moves and expending as little energy as possible until it really matters which starts tomorrow. There’s no point in spending a lot of energy for very little gain in the earlier part of the race. It’s the Rás.”
Meanwhile, Benat Intxausti (Movistar Team) claimed stage 16 of the Giro d’Italia from Valloire to Ivrea, beating Tanel Kangert (Astana) and Przemyslaw Niemiec (Lampre-Merida) in a sprint finish.
Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Pro Team) retains the race leader’s pink jersey with Cadel Evans (BMC) in second at 1.26 and Rigoberto Uran (Sky Procycling) at 2.46.
* See Results in Results Section.
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