They’re known as the toughest one-day races in cycling and Sam Bennett experienced one of the reasons why, emptying his legs and his stomach in the war of attrition that was the 83rd edition of Gent-Wevelgem.
After a suitably hard battle through Flanders Fields, Bennett was still part of a nine-rider breakaway with just 16km remaining of the brutally mixed terrain that covered 248.6km in all: only by then Bennett was clearly spent, dropping slowly and then suddenly off as seven riders forged ahead, a grimacing face evidence of his complete effort. He had in his own words thrown up, then blown up.
In the end Wout Van Aert made it a home victory for Belgium, the 26-year-old Jumbo-Visma rider producing a beautifully timed sprint from that seven-rider group, winning his first classic of the season and first at Gent-Wevelgem, with Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka Assos) and Matteo Trentin (UAE Team Emirates) second and third.
For Bennett, racing again just four days after winning his first World Tour one-day race at the 45th and 204km-long Brugge-De Panne on Wednesday, the effort of getting over the final cobbled climb of the Kemmelberg, ruthlessly steep in parts, eventually took its toll. He dropped a bike length off before promptly regaining contact, the road from there a near straight and pancake flat 34km run-in to the finish.
With 33km to go however, Bennett twice emptied the contents of stomach, first over his right shoulder, then his left, shaking his head in suitably sickening disgust soon afterwards. He battled on for another 17km before the energy level hit zero. Even without a Deceuninck-Quick-Step teammate in that nine-man group, Bennett would certainly have fancied his chances against Van Aert.
“I’m fine now,” Bennett said, ending up 55th, part of the third group, losing four minutes and four seconds in that final 16km. “I maybe just ate too much, tried to fuel as much as possible, and I had to go so deep, on the last climb up the Kemmelberg, there was just too much in my stomach, too much lactate (in the legs), and I couldn’t hold down my food, just threw-up.
“But it was just my own fault, I just tried to stay fuelled for the miles, it’s such a really long race, and I over-ate, that’s it. When my food was out of my stomach, it was only a matter of time before there was no energy in the legs, I just completely blew up, couldn’t get any food back in.
“It’s my own fault. You’re always told to eat, and I kept forcing myself, trying to do the best I could to fuel myself. It was a great chance, but when you blow up, there’s nothing you can do, I thought I was doing the right thing in the race, did everything I did. But after I threw up I had no food, the hunger set in, so I went from one extreme to the other, the legs blew up, and I just couldn’t do anymore, felt flat, dizzy. I was trying to hold it down, thinking eventually I might be okay, but no.”
It’s the second misfortune for Bennett this season, as he punctured before one of the final climbs in Milan-San Remo last Sunday, before bouncing back in spectacular fashion to take that first one-day victory on Wednesday, his fifth win of 2021 and 54th as a pro.
Gent-Wevelgem was a battle zone throughout, the race torn apart early on, in part due to the strong crosswinds, Bennett part of an original 25-rider breakaway that after just 40km opened up several minutes on the chasing riders, also split into different groups: “I wasn’t surprised, we just tried to make sure we were in the right group, and then it was just about surviving for me,” added Bennett, the traditional mix of cobbles, unpaved roads and local “hellingen” (hills) making it one of the hardest of all the spring classics.
It would have been something of a home victory for Bennett too had he won, the Irish rider part of the Belgian team, and born just down the road in Menen, where his father Michael was then playing professional football with local club Eendracht Wervik. A minor detour at the end of the race, because of a fire in Menen, added another 1.1km to the race, as if Bennett needed that.
Both Trek-Segafredo and Bora-Hansgrohe had to pull out due to Covid-19 positives, which denied Ryan Mullen the start with Trek-Segafredo
