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A week after having one eye on the stage win and the other on the green jersey, Sam Bennett admits that the only focus now is what is on his back. Six stages to go, 45 points ahead, he can still make it to the group’s final sprint on the Champs Elysees next Sunday.
Speaking on the second day off at his Deceuninck-Quick Step team hotel at La Tour du Pin, ahead of the first of three Alpines stages of this year’s Tour de France, Bennett also sees that task as double: doing the he has to do to stay safe in green and make sure Peter Sagan doesn’t do enough to get him out of it.
“It’s a good advantage right now, but it can go down really fast,” he says. “Peter is one of the best in the world, so it’s not going to be easy. It will always be a fight. Not only in the intermediate sprints, but also to make sure they (Bora-Hansgrohe) don’t run away and then to finish the stage.
“It’s three points in the whole stage, but the team has been doing a fantastic job for me. I also think the day before, where their team rode really hard to get rid of me, maybe that hurt them a bit on Sunday. He (Sagan) seemed to be a little more tired, but he has incredible strength, and I’m sure he will recover very well, it will be very, very difficult to compete with him in the next few days. “
Also pending are the results of the second round of Covid-19 tests that must also be clarified, only what is certain is that the first stage of the Tour de Bennett won on the island of Île de Ré last Tuesday, recovering the green jersey. in the process. took off some pressure, just to add a little more. He did not start this Tour dreaming of the green jersey, but he certainly dreams now of ending it.
Sacrificed
“No no. I always thought about it, I thought if I was close I would. Look, it seems like a great opportunity now. This year, I said that I would only go in stages. Then I got to my stage and I also found myself quite close. I think I probably too I’ve sacrificed a few other victories, and that’s to help bring home this green jersey.
“I think it is, the first week I didn’t fall asleep until 2 or 3 in the morning. That pressure disappeared after the stage win. But now I find myself in a completely new position, a different kind of pressure. But somehow you get used to it. It’s already two weeks and it becomes more normal.
“I’ve certainly discovered on this Tour that the last 5km are so fast that you don’t think you won’t even have your legs. But then when you get to the front, somehow the legs are there, so it’s just about staying mentally strong.
“The other thing that I find quite funny is that I get a lot of support from home, people who put up posters in my hometown, I love that, but that is also something of expectation.”
After three pure mountain stages, the final of Friday’s stage 19 in Champagnole may surpass some important green spots, and the Champs-Elysées certainly will.
“It could be (Friday), you never know. I can’t let anything escape me so I’ll have to fight. But I’m really just focused on what I have to do. I also feel good, it was just a bad day, last Friday, but I have recovered very well and I just try to stay mentally fresh at this stage.
“For the Champs Elysees, of course, it’s the only sprint you always see when you grow up, it’s one of the most iconic. If I could do that, in a green shirt, it would be amazing. “
Bennett has now enjoyed seven days in the green, getting it back last Tuesday, after two days in the first week, five days last week, and will wear it for the eighth day on Tuesday’s stage 16, the 164km from La Tour du Pin all the way to the roof of the mountain at Villard de Lans, with hardly a stretch of flat road, highlighted by an 11 km climb in the Vercors massif.
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