Sam Bennett back in Tour de France school of hard knocks

This Tour de France has seemed like Groundhog Day over and over again for Sam Bennett.

One year ago the young Irishman began his first Tour de France lacking in fitness due to a lingering illness in the buildup to the race. He battled through the Tour, finishing 10th on a stage but then became sick again during the final week of the event.

Ultimately abandoned

He ultimately abandoned after he began urinating blood.

Demoralised by how his debut Tour had been, he rebounded by winning two races in the weeks afterwards. He then started planning his 2016 season, training harder than he had done before over the winter to be ready for a much better Tour.

That hasn’t worked out. On July 2nd he was involved in a bad crash while contesting the sprint at the end of stage one. Smashing into riders who had clipped a crowd-control banner, he hit the ground hard and sustained serious injuries to his hand.

For Bennett, that began a long battle to get to Paris, a goal that is still one week from completion. He’s last overall, is suffering every day but presses on kilometre by kilometre. His story epitomises how tough, and how cruel, three weeks in July can be.

“We were trying to move into position for the sprint,” Bennett said the day after the crash, explaining how his fall happened. “The barriers came in real sharp. Two guys got tangled up in them. Then they ended up on the ground in front of me. I just couldn’t react in time.

“When I looked at my hand I could see the bone in my finger. I was brought to hospital and had to go under to get stitched up.”

Bennett began stage two in a waterproof glove, needing to ensure that the bandages were kept dry to minimise the risk of infection.

He also had to try not to bend his fingers too much and risk breaking the stitches. That sounds reasonable, but riding an 183-kilometre stage and needing to grip handlebars, change gears and use the brakes made that a very tough ask.

Unsurprisingly, he suffered a lot. He was dropped towards the line and finished last on the stage, 16 minutes and 23 seconds back.

His battle continued in the following days. That injury plus a drop in form caused by the antibiotics he had to take prolonged his suffering. Out of the 198-man field, he was 186th, 196th, 193rd, 198th and 187th on stages three until seven.

Sitting last overall was something he found very difficult to take. He’s achieved big results in the past and that’s simply no reflection of his talent.

“It is really playing with my head,” he admitted on the morning of stage eight. “I’m not really happy with my season, results-wise. I really wanted to turn things around here but from day one, I was back in the same boat as last year. It is kind of hard for the head, but I have to deal with it.

Bad rider

“After the crash, all I wanted to do was to go home. But I said I might as well take something from the race and carry on, trying to get some strength and finish this Tour. Maybe after the race I can get more results.”

He said that being dismissed as a bad rider by those who don’t understand the sport was a concern.

“It is two years running that I am at the back and people form this idea about you based on that,” he said. “I want to be in the race but I also want to be competing well. I am hoping that I can come around and get up in a bunch sprint or two, but I don’t know if that will happen.”

When Bennett crashed, another rider also hit the deck badly. The Dane Michael Morkov (Katusha) had his own set of injuries and, like the Irishman, struggled badly in the days afterwards. He was eventually forced to abandon the Tour on stage eight, but Bennett continued.

He was 161st on that day and then finished 182nd on last Sunday’s tough mountain stage to Andorra Arcalis.

That brought him to the race’s first rest day and a chance to recharge his batteries somewhat. The following morning, he revealed that things were worse than first thought.

“I did more X-rays on the rest day we found out that the small finger is broken,” he explained.

The doctors put it in a plastic split but, with another finger still affected by the crash, he was now trying to pilot his bike with just two working fingers on one hand.

That affected both his sprinting and his climbing.

“On any steep climbs I can’t get off the saddle and use my power,” he explained. “I have to try to do it in the saddle. On the first few days, my hamstrings and calves were wrecked trying to do it all in the saddle.”

Equally seriously, his ability to handle his bike is affected.

“I am starting to get used to braking with just two fingers now. But when there are people slamming on the brakes in front of you, your reaction is to pull the brakes with all your hand and you hurt the stitches.”

Bike handling

Bennett is normally a very skilled rider. His bike handling is something which has led to sprint victories in the past, but not being in full control of his machine and lingering nerves from his crash have affected him badly.

After trailing in towards the back of the bunch on stages 10, 11 and 12, he said after Friday’s time trial: “With regards riding in the bunch I am still not 100 percent confident.”

The Bora-Argon 18 rider added: “I am riding really stupidly. I don’t know if it just with the lack of confidence or what, but I am just making really bad decisions. That has cost me a lot of energy and made things harder.”

Still, he knows that two stages that would normally suit him are coming up. Saturday’s stage to Villars les Dombes contains just three categorised climbs and is likely to conclude in a bunch finish, ditto for Monday’s race to Berne in Switzerland.

Before the race Bennett and his team would have pinpointed these as possible opportunities.

After 13 stages of the Tour much has changed due to his crash, but he’ll see what he can do.

“If they end in bunch finishes, that would be nice,” he said. “I would love to be able to sprint but it is not even the sprint itself, it is getting to that point that I am having the trouble with. I just don’t know if my confidence is there.

“Of course if I am any way decent I will try, but I haven’t done anything yet and I can’t really judge how I will be.

“The motivation is there but it is different to try to do it on the road.”

Bennett’s purgatory has shown the cruel difficulty of one of the world’s hardest sports.

The Tour is already gruelling without things going wrong. Hitting the deck on stage one was the worst possible start but he knows that one good result between here and the end of the Tour will put an end to his Groundhog Day experience and make a brutal race salvageable.