THE BIG INTERVIEW

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

Writer Sophie Hurcom Portraits Rebecca Marshall

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.

Champ on the Champs: Bennett wins in Paris, wearing the green jersey

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 Champs- Élysées, 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.”