"At the end of 2022 I thought I was back" - Sam Bennett looking to move on from disappointing 2023

Sam Bennett is hoping a fresh start in 2024 will be the catalyst for his return to the sprint elite after a disappointing final season at BORA - hansgrohe in 2023.

“I’ve had three frustrating years. I needed a fresh start,” Bennett has explained in conversation with Velo, ahead of starting his 2024 season with Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team. “I never got up and running, really. I had good moments, actually. At the end of 2022 I thought I was back. But I had a few hiccups and I was gone again. But we were looking back in the files and we could see little clues about where to improve. Little things that show us that it’s still there, and show what is needed to be done.”

With a move to a new team, Bennett also he working under a new coach next season, Stephen Barrett. “I’m excited to work with Sam,” Barrett told Velo. “I know what he did in 2020. We all do. The last time he rode the Tour de France he won the green jersey. For me, it’s the first time I’m going to coach a WorldTour Irish rider and that gives me a lot of motivation to really do the maximum we can to make sure he can win some races.”

“With Ben O’Connor, Bob Jungels, and Felix Gall, I’m three for three with Tour stage wins and Sam is my next target for 2024," he continues. “I’ve not coached a top class sprinter in the past, but I certainly have an eye for data. For me, the biggest thing that I look at is the demands of racing. And the demands of racing have changed quite a bit in the last five, six years."

What challenges face Barrett though, in the differences between coaching climbers and sprinters? “If you’re a climber, we know what you need to do in terms of watts per kilo. We know you need to be very, very good on the descents. We know you need to be extremely good in the time trial," Barrett explains. “I think now as well for sprinting, you need to be able to adapt to certain situations. There’s less reliance on the big leadout trains, for one."

“With Sam, when you go back and look at historical data, he doesn’t have the biggest threshold. So I think first of all, the biggest thing we can do is to increase his threshold. That in turn will increase his overall resilience, his durability, his fatigue resistance," concludes Bennett's coach. “If we can get Sam to the last 500 meters having expended the least amount of energy, then he should be able to apply his most power.”