Sam Bennett is back in action on Monday and chasing what would be his second win of the season, with the seven-day UAE Tour offering several opportunities for success.
The WorldTour event begins with flat race from Al Dhafra Castle to Al Mirfa and includes three other stages suited to sprinters. Bennett’s Bora-Hansgrohe team will ride for the Carrick-on-Suir rider on these days, trying to ensure that he is in the best possible position to go for victories.
That task will be made more testing by a strong field of sprinters, including Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ), Olav Kooij (Jumbo-Visma), Caleb Ewan (Lotto Dstny), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla) and others.
Bennett’s team-mate Ryan Mullen is also on the startlist, meaning there will be two Irish riders in the race. The race is being held in the United Arab Emirates and runs until Sunday.
Meanwhile, Chris Dawson was best of the Irish in the eSports world championships held late on Saturday, performing well in the three-event online contest.
Riding smart trainers and connected to the Zwift platform, Dawson and Richard Barry lined out as part of a 86 rider field for the first of those three races, the 13.8 kilometre The Punch race. The first 30 riders from that qualified for the next race and, in finishing 8th, Dawson secured his place. Barry was 44th.
The Climb event featured three hills over the 8.6km distance, and saw Dawson put in a burst of pace on the final descent inside the last three kilometres. However he was swamped by the other riders and while he was sitting fifth in line starting the final ascent, had to be content with 21st.
Only the first 10 riders progressed to the concluding The Podium race. That last event saw a number of intermediate sprints eliminating riders one by one, with Denmark’s Bjørn Andreassen ultimately triumphing ahead of Germany’s Jason Osborne and Mark Mäding.
Three Irish riders lined out in the women’s races which followed the same format as the male events. Linda Kelly, Heather Foley and wildcard entry Imogen Cotter were among the 87 starters for the opening The Punch race, and were prominent for much of it. However that came down to a big bunch sprint and each finished outside the top 30, thus missing out on progressing further.
Kelly was 37th, Cotter 53rd and Foley 61st.
The Netherland’s Loes Adegeest won her second-consecutive world title at the end of the three races, beating Great Britain’s Zoe Langham and the USA’s Jacquie Godbe.
