Sam Bennett exceeded his own pre-race expectations to extend his points lead at the Vuelta a España on Friday, believing before the stage that he could lose the green jersey to his main rival Mads Pedersen, but ending the day by actually extending his advantage.
The Carrick-on-Suir rider won the bunch sprint for sixth place on stage 7 to Cistierna. He crossed the line 29 seconds after the Spaniard Jesús Herrada (Cofidis) outsprinted Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious), Samuele Battistella (Astana Qazaqstan) and two other breakaway riders.
The stage featured a first-category climb midway through it. Former world champion Pedersen has been climbing more strongly than Bennett so far in the race and with both the day’s intermediate sprint and the finish line located after the ascent, the Irish man admitted prior to the stage that he expected the Dane to grab a bundle of points.
However, while the pressure applied by Pedersen’s Trek-Segafredo team detached Bennett on the climb it only did so 2km from the summit. Bennett was able to chase back on with the help of his team and was then clearly faster than Pedersen in the sprint at the end.
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He took sixth, with Pedersen only ninth. However, while he extended his lead in the green jersey contest from nine to 15 points he rued missing out on what would have been a third stage win in this year’s race.
“I am disappointed. I had a bit more to give today,” he said. “The breakaway was so strong and to be honest, I didn’t really expect to be there today. Then the moment we saw that I was making it over the climb, the boys really committed. They did an incredible job, but we just couldn’t catch the break. Again, I want to thank the guys. They went so deep to try to bring it back. I am happy to keep the points jersey, to be honest. I really expected to lose it today. Thanks to the team-mates for really looking after me. It was a super job.”
He will draw considerable encouragement and motivation from the result.
Race leader
Overall leader Remco Evenepoel (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) finished in the bunch and retained his 21-second advantage over Rudy Molard (Groupama-FDJ). The race continues on Saturday with a 153.4km mountain leg to Collau Fancuaya.
Meanwhile, Archie Ryan performed strongly on the first of three big mountain stages in the Tour de l’Avenir. He finished fifth on the summit finish of Saint-François-Longchamp, 1min 36sec behind the stage winner Cian Uijtdebroeks (Belgium).
Ryan jumps up 12 places to ninth overall, 3min 3sec adrift of the race leader Michael Hessman (Germany). The race is regarded as an Under-23 version of the Tour de France.
